


I'm Left

by Esswei



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-14
Updated: 2015-12-02
Packaged: 2018-01-08 16:14:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 25,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1134784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Esswei/pseuds/Esswei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Johanna has vowed to not get attached to anyone again. Katniss has vowed to keep her focus in the 75th Hunger Games on saving Peeta. It looks like they're both about to break their promises. Eventual Joniss, Johanna 3rd person/Katniss 1st person, follows events of Catching Fire and Mockingjay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Johanna

So basically, she’s fucked. 

The words that the next tributes will be reaped from the existing pool of victors have just left Snow’s mouth, and Johanna sees red. No, she’s not just seeing red. She’s seeing murder. She’s vividly seeing herself burrowing an axe into Snow’s head. Someone in the house across from her screams, and Johanna wants to bury a hatchet into their head, too. Snow’s words have started a commotion in the Victor’s Village, and she just wants everyone to be quiet so she can think. So she yells it in the direction of the window- “Shut the fuck up!” Before she can tell if anyone listened to her, she runs out the back door of her house.

She sprints into the forests, grabbing her axe on the way. She doesn’t grab her sweater or bother to put on her shoes even though it’s cold outside and there are several inches of snow on the ground. But she hardly notices the biting wind. If anything, she feels hot, a deep rage within her boiling her insides, burning her.

Running isn’t enough to douse the flames. Now deep within the forest, she stops, panting heavily. Impulsively, she throws her axe at a nearby pine tree. It buries itself several inches within the bark. Johanna runs over to the tree, yanks her axe out, and swings it again, making another mark. She screams wordlessly as she slashes into the tree, not trying to cut it down, just trying to hurt it, to give it as many scars as possible. The violent action is an effective channel for her murderous thoughts. She’s not sure how long she’s been hacking away at the tree- maybe even an hour?- when her arms give out. Exhausted, she leans against the tree and collapses on the snow-covered ground, her hands red and raw due to both the labor and the cold.

She stays under the splintered tree for another hour, the snow slowly soaking her clothes, and tries to clear her mind. She’s going back. There’s no doubt about it; she’s the only female victor in her district. But she can’t go back there! The one thing’s she’s held onto in recent years is the fact that she doesn’t have to go back to that hellish arena. It’s the one thing that’s given her comfort during her worst days, and that’s been taken away from her. She would start sobbing, but she realized the futileness of crying a while ago. She hasn’t bothered with it for years.

She stays in the snow until she starts shivering uncontrollably, and even then she’s reluctant to walk back to her house. Her house is too big for one person, and its presence only serves as a reminder of how lonely she really is. So she makes the journey as slowly as possible, cherishing the scent of pine and the star scattered sky that will soon be taken away from her.

To her surprise, two people are waiting for her at her back door- Blight and Max. Blight’s a victor from a bit more than a decade before her Games. At thirty three he’s the closest to Johanna’s age, but they only talk when the Hunger Games roll around. Max was one of Johanna’s mentors. More specifically, he was the one who suggested to Johanna to let everyone underestimate her. She’s not going to admit it, but she’s a little glad to see them. It’s nice to have someone to talk to tonight; she’s worried about what she would do if she was left alone. Probably chop all her furniture to bits.

“What the fuck do you want,” she snarls. Not like she’s going to be all sappy about it.

“Can we come in?” Max says. Johanna doesn’t answer him. She wordlessly walks into her house, throwing her axe onto a couch. They follow, knowing this is Johanna’s way of inviting them in.

“It was nice knowing you two,” Johanna says, pulling off her soaking wet socks. “Do you think we can hold my funeral before I leave, so I can hear all the great things everyone has to say about me before I die?” she asks as she walks over to her fireplace and fiddles with the box of matches. Her hands are shaking too hard to manage to start a fire. Blight takes the box from her.

“You’re not going to die. Something’s going to be done,” Blight says in a hushed tone as he lights the fire. “The other victors won’t stand for this.”

“That’s rather optimistic,” Johanna says rather loudly. Blight shushes her. She glares at him, but lowers her voice anyway. “Nobody’s stood up to the Capitol in years.”

“We’re already getting phone calls from all the other districts,” Max whispers. “We can’t say anything direct over the phone, but it’s clear something’s going on. Just keep your eyes open.”

Johanna does. A week after her conversation with Blight and Max, while Johanna is out throwing axes at trees in an effort to get back into killing shape, a young boy hands her a folded note. It’s complete gibberish, a random string of letters, and Johanna almost throws it away. But a week later, when Johanna’s buying a new set of throwing knives, a teenage girl hands her a cipher. Johanna spends an hour decoding the note, but it still doesn’t make any sense. She thinks she’s done it wrong, but the next day she receives a second cipher in a delivery of meat. This time the letter actually forms English words, but the message still confuses Johanna.

**“KEEP DISTRICT 12 ALIVE. WILL ESCAPE.”**

District 12? At first Johanna thinks the note is referring to the whole district, but abandons that idea quickly; it must be referring to the victors. Katniss is definitely going back to the Games. Either her lover boy or Haymitch (whom Johanna knows quite well) will be joining her. Even though she generally does her best to avoid the Games, Johanna watched them last year with great interest from the moment Katniss volunteered. She could tell that Katniss was wearing a mask, trying to fool people, the same way Johanna had tricked her opponents during her time in the arena. While Johanna pretended to be meek so she could be underestimated, Katniss pretended (was still pretending, Johanna thinks) to be madly in love. It was the moment with the berries that really caught Johanna’s attention. It was a glorious “fuck you” to the Capitol, even better than the literal “fuck yous” Johanna frequently indulged in. Katniss interested Johanna enough that she even tuned into the Victory Tour, where she was disappointed to see a more subdued Katniss. Max took notice and questioned her about her newfound interest in the Games, but she lied and said she was only watching for Cinna’s outfits.

How is she supposed to keep Katniss and the men alive? Was this message directed towards her specifically, or towards all the victors? And what does that even mean, “WILL ESCAPE?” Escape before being reaped, or escape while in the Capitol, or escape during the Games? Johanna memorizes the short note before burning it.

She doesn’t get any more information until after she’s been reaped. Johanna laughs when they call her name, then flips off the camera. If she’s going to her death, she might as well have fun while she can. Poor Blight is called up as the male victor. He looks like he’s about to throw up when he joins her at the center of the stage. Max and another victor named Genner are chosen to be mentors.

It’s a very short train ride to the Capitol. It only lasts a little more than two hours since District 7 is one of the closest districts. Johanna wants to get more information out of Blight, but the train doesn’t stop so there’s no opportunity for them to get away from the prying ears of the Capitol.

The Capitol. It makes Johanna sick every year she comes. These are the people who tried to kill her- who are trying to kill her again. These are the people who’ve killed everyone Johanna could ever care about. She’s constantly having to shove thoughts of Maris and Simon to the back of her mind when she’s in this wretched place. There’s only one person Johanna is happy to see.

“Finnick!” She runs to him the moment she spots him. He, too, is here earlier than most of the victors, since District 4 is also fairly close to the Capitol. Johanna hugs him tightly. He’s the only person left in her life who she can embrace without having to fear the consequences. “I’m thrilled we get to spend time together before going to our inevitable deaths.”

He laughs. “So nice of the Capitol to be so considerate of our friendship. Hey, come up with me to the roof. The view’s gorgeous.” Johanna smiles when she follows him to the elevator, knowing that she’s not going up to see the horizon but to hear some valuable information.

“You got the note,“ Finnick says quietly once they’re out of earshot from any possible bugs, facing away from her so no cameras can read his lips. Johanna nods. “And you’ve heard about the revolts in the districts?” Finnick asks. Johanna nods again- it’s the only news she pays any attention listens to. “Katniss is the one inspiring these rebellions. People see her as some kind of symbol.”

“I don’t see what’s so special about her,” Johanna lies.

“It’s what she represents that matters. Haymitch told me that we should all try to get the Games cancelled. If we can’t do that, he and some of the other mentors are going to rescue us from the arena. Apparently the head game maker’s in on it.”

“So what are we supposed to do during the Games?” Johanna asks.

“Keep Katniss and Peeta alive. I’ve heard Districts 1 and 2 are refusing to cooperate, or maybe Haymitch just doesn’t trust them, so they’ll still be a threat. Then there’s something to do with lightning, but apparently District 3’s in charge of that. Then once they break us out, we get to go free.” He turns to her. “What do you think, Johanna? Is this plan worth your time?”

“Why not,” Johanna says, feigning disinterest. But she’s actually suppressing a fit of girlish giggles, the idea of freedom, real freedom where she doesn’t have to constantly fear for her life, filling her with unbridled glee. And, although she would never admit it, she’s intrigued to meet the girl who was ready to swallow poison berries in an act of defiance.

“Let’s go fuck with the Capitol,” she says.

A/N: Thanks for reading! This fic will follow the events of Catching Fire (and probably some of Mockingjay) but will add (slow-developing) Joniss to the plot. It will take inspiration from both the book and the movie, and the chapters will alternate between Johanna’s POV and Katniss’s POV. It's currently rated T but it is likely that it will be bumped up to M in later chapters.


	2. Katniss

It’s impossible to describe what it’s like being surrounded by people you’ve decided to kill. I’m standing by my chariot, getting ready to be paraded in front of the Capitol. The other victors are waiting too, but while I have chosen to stay by myself they have gathered into groups and are chatting. I try to look busy petting my horse so no one comes up to talk to me. If I am to make good on my promise to save Peeta’s life, I will have to be ruthless with all others in the arena. It will be that much harder if I get to know them.

I glance around the room. I already know too much about them. Peeta and I have watched the videos of every one of their Games. The man whose outfit is shining with fake electronics is Beetee Latier, who won by setting up elaborate traps made with ropes, wires, and knives throughout the arena. And the man who is hardly wearing any clothes at all is Finnick Odair, the gorgeous man from District 4 who basically charmed his way into receiving a trident.

Standing right next to Finnick is Johanna Mason. She’s turned away from me, but I can identify her because, like every District 7 tribute for as long as I can remember, she is dressed as a tree. It’s quite an eyesore of a dress, very tight fitting from her ankles all the way up to her neck, where it flares out. On her head is a very large crown constructed of interweaving twigs with leaves sprouting out at random directions. The top-heavy quality of the dress gives the impression that she could topple over at any moment. Johanna seems to be displeased with her dress as well; she’s tugging at the sleeves and gesturing angrily at Finnick. As if she senses me staring at her, she turns around and catches my eye. I lower my gaze but it’s too late. She has mistaken our two seconds of eye contact as an invitation to come over.

She strides up to me, getting one or two steps too far into my personal space. I back up and hit the chariot behind me. Even though Johanna’s shorter than me I feel like a rabbit that’s been cornered by a fox. My outfit today has been specifically designed to be intimidating, but it isn’t having that effect on Johanna. Her eyes run up and down my tight-fitting jumpsuit and I blush, which is as unexpected as it is embarrassing.

“So are you going to be the girl on fire again? You would think that would grow old after a while. I’m certainly sick of it. Now you don’t know me yet, but-”

“You’re Johanna Mason,” I interrupt. “I remember your Games.” It’s true; I didn’t need to watch the tape to remember Johanna Mason. I was around fourteen when she was reaped as at seventeen. She made a strong impression.

“Really?” she says. “Then again, maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. You were clearly taking notes.”

“What do you mean?” I ask. Johanna smiles. It’s an infuriating smile, a smirk, really, full of smugness and a hint of venom.

“You’re also good at pretending to be someone you’re not,” she says. She winks at me, as if we’re now co-conspirators. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad the whole star-crossed lovers thing was an act. You can do so much better than bread boy, don’t you think?”

“It wasn’t an act,” I lie. “We’re getting married.”

“It’s sad you have to take it that far. I thought the whole thing was pretty transparent,” she says condescendingly. “They’re all dense, that’s why they all believe it.” She jerks her head in the direction of the adoring crowds of Capitol citizens that awaits us to indicate who “they” are.

A man announces that all victors must board their chariots, preventing me from responding. Johanna walks away as quickly as she came up, but before she’s out of earshot, she turns to me again. “But you can’t fool me,” she says. And then she’s gone.

“What did Johanna Mason want?” asks Peeta, who has just come back from Portia.

“I don’t know,” I say, somewhat dazed over the whole encounter. Is this why Snow is so upset? Because people like Johanna can see through me so easily?

“Johanna. . . she’s the one who pretended to be weak in her Games, right?”

“She’s clearly abandoned that act,” I say, thinking of the way she sauntered over to her chariot. Then I shake my head, trying to get her out of my thoughts. “Come on, Peeta, let’s go get ready.”

-

I’m feeling lightheaded after the chariot ride. All I want is to return to our room, eat dinner, and spend a few hours away form everybody, but Haymitch instead introduces us to the victors from District 11. I’m upset when I find out that the female victor, Seeder, is very nice. In only a few days I’ll probably be shooting an arrow at her head. It’s easier to imagine being forced to kill her district partner Chaff, who gives me a very unwanted kiss.

We finally board the elevator up to our room, but before I can enjoy this moment of quiet away from the victors I spot Johanna Mason rushing to catch up with us. She flings her twig crown out of the elevator before the doors close, then turns to me. She says something about Cinna and trees, but I don’t register her words because she’s started to take off her clothes. First she unclasps her bracelets, and I think it might end there, but then she’s asking Peeta to unzip and is pulling off the entire dress.

“Did you hear me?” she asks as her dress drops to the ground, snapping her fingers in my face.

“What?” I say, dazed. Then I notice I’m not staring at her face and direct my eyes up.

“I said, ‘You look fantastic.’ It’s rude to not respond to a complement.”

“. . . Thanks,” I say, pausing for far too long. “Cinna’s been helping me with my own clothing line,” I add in a rush, hoping to make up for my silence. “You should see what he can do with velvet.”

“I have. On your tour. That strapless number you wore in District Two? The deep blue one with the diamonds? So gorgeous I wanted to reach through the screen and tear it right off your back,” says Johanna. The way she says that last sentence, almost a purr, makes me lose my voice again. Rolling her eyes at my speechlessness she turns to Peeta and chats with him about painting or something for the rest of the ride up. I keep my eyes on the floor, afraid they’ll betray me again. Next to me Haymitch is making choking noises, and I just know he’s holding back a laugh.

“Bye. Let’s do it again sometime.” Johanna says as we stop at her floor, and leaves, but not before directing a wink at me. The second after the elevator doors close Haymitch doubles down laughing. It’s not long before Peeta joins in.

“Fuck you guys,” I spit out, surprising everyone, including myself, with the outburst.

“Calm down, sweetheart,” he says. “You have to see the humor in it.” But I don’t, and when we arrive at our floor I storm out of the elevator angrily.

I give Peeta and Haymitch the cold shoulder for the rest of the day. “Well, we are all certainly quiet today, aren’t we?” Effie comments during dinner. I haven’t said a word during the entire meal.

“Johanna Mason stripped down in front of us in the elevator while flirting shamelessly with Katniss,” Haymitch says.

“She wasn’t flirting with me!” I say defensively as the entire table starts laughing. “She was trying to provoke me.”

“Katniss is right,” says Peeta, always on my side. “The other victors see her as pure, that’s why they’ve been riling her up like this.”

Pure? Well, I’m not sure if I like that explanation any better, but it stops most of the laughing so I accept it.

When we watch the recap of the opening ceremonies later that evening, I keep a close eye on Johanna. She does nothing to contain the contempt in her eyes as her chariot races towards the City Center. In fact, she is actively scowling at President Snow. I had thought Peeta and I seemed merciless in our chariots, but we are nothing compared to Johanna, the Goddess of Death. She is the scariest tree I have ever seen.

My sour feelings towards Johanna slowly turn from frustration to admiration the longer I watch the parade. I catch myself smiling when she rolls her eyes during President Snow’s speech. When I’m in bed and trying to fall asleep, I can’t stop thinking about her. I’m dreading coming face-to-face with her in the arena. And I can’t tell if it’s because I’m afraid she’s going to kill me, or because I’m afraid I’ll have to kill her.

\---

I avoid leaving my bedroom for as long as possible the next morning and I’m predictably chewed out by Haymitch when I eventually appear in the dining room. Before sending me and Peeta off to the training room, he orders us to stay hopelessly in love and to ally up with as many other victors as possible. I can’t tell which is worse. Keeping up the charade of being in love with Peeta is exhausting. But allying up with the other victors? That’s like befriending corpses. Only one out of the twenty-four of us is getting out alive, and I’ve already sworn to myself that that person is going to be Peeta.

When I step into the training area, I scan the room looking for potential allies. Johanna is the first person to catch my eye. She’s swinging an axe with great deft, her muscles rippling as she throws the weight of her entire body behind each thrust. When she brings the blade down to the ground, she does it with such force the sound clangs through the entire room, causing many victors to glance over. She looks over in my direction and smirks. I shiver- she is definitely a force to be reckoned with.

Yesterday, Johanna seemed intent on getting under my skin. But what she really managed to do, more than anything, was impress me. Compared to most of the other victors, who are old and out of shape, Johanna’s still young and healthy. And her hatred towards the Capitol is probably her most admirable trait.

When Haymitch said to make allies, I doubt he was talking about the extremely bitter and ill-tempered possibly psychotic nudist. But it’s her distasteful qualities that paradoxically end up drawing me to her. She’s in many ways the opposite of Peeta, who cares so much and so deeply. Johanna doesn’t worry whether people like her or not, nor does she seem to get too attached. It’s refreshing. At least this is one person I’m sure won’t end up declaring their undying love for me.

Her smile grows wider as she sees me walk over, and she swings the axe over her shoulder, her other hand resting on her hip. Johanna’s stylist really should have found some way to incorporate an axe into her outfit; she seems a thousand times more confident and sexy wielding her weapon than she ever would decorated in bark. But, then again, Johanna probably would have tried to chuck it at President Snow.

“Checking out the goods?” she asks as I approach her, purposefully flexing her arms.

I ignore her question. “How’d you learn how to swing an axe like that?”

She rolls her eyes. “District 7 is the lumber district, brainless,” she says, as if she were speaking to a child.

“Yeah, I know,” I say, embarrassed. Johanna has a great talent of making me feel like an idiot. Maybe I shouldn’t have come over after all. “I meant, were you like a lumberjack or something?”

“Basically. Been hacking down trees all my life. Except for that short period of time where I was hacking down people.” She demonstrates a few more of her swings, bringing the axe down just a few inches from my toes. I flinch, which of course makes her grin. “Trees scream less,” she says.

I should be practicing survival skills, or chatting with the other victors, befriending as possible like Haymitch said. Instead, I find myself asking Johanna if she can teach me how to wield an axe the way she can.

She thinks about it, rolling the axe in her hands the entire time. “What’ll I get in return?” she asks.

“I can teach you how to shoot a bow,” I say.

“Do I want to learn how to shoot?” she replies me. “It seems so. . . unreliable. Once you release the string, you have no control over where the arrow’s going to go.”

“If you’re good at it, you’ll hit your mark anyway,” I say. “And it’s got to be better than throwing an axe.”

“You’ve never seen me throw an axe before then,” Johanna says.

“Look, I’ll show you,” I tell her. She grins, as if I’ve just challenged her, and follows me to the archery station. I pick up a bow, tap a few keys on the screen, and walk into the small simulation room. I slip into a trance as I shoot at the digitized targets and I forget that I’m being watched and judged. When I finish, I hear clapping, and I know it’s not Johanna. I’ve apparently attracted a pretty large crowd; almost all of the victors having gathered to see me shoot. But right now there’s only one person whose opinion I care about.

Johanna isn’t smiling, which at first I take for a bad sign. Then she catches my eye and raises her eyebrow. No, she’s impressed. She nods at me. I’ve passed the test.

I spend the rest of the day with Johanna. Up until lunch, I teach her how to hold a bow properly, how to draw the string with the right amount of pressure, how to direct the arrow’s course. She does well with the stationary targets, but she has trouble with the fake birds I throw into the air. I keep having to readjust her grip on the bow. She’s still very good for a beginner.

At lunch, she leaves my company to join Finnick, and I go over to Peeta who’s filling up his tray with food.

“I saw you teaching Johanna how to shoot,” he says as he ladles soup into a bowl. There’s an accusing edge to his tone which catches me off guard. “I thought you didn’t like her.”

“I didn’t. I mean, I don’t,” I say defensively. Do I? I actually enjoyed my time with her today. While I taught her how to shoot, she taught me about all of the victors. She identified the drunks, the ones who had fallen out of shape, and the best people to go to a club with (although I doubt that information will prove useful in the arena). She also told stories about mentoring in the Capitol. Chaff, the man from District 11 who kissed me, would always flirt with the Capitol women. And another mentor, who hadn’t been reaped, once unsuccessfully tried to get his tribute laid before the Games.

Something tells me that Peeta wouldn’t think that Johanna’s gossip would justify hanging out with her. “Why don’t you spend some time with the Careers after lunch?” he suggests.

“I can’t. Johanna’s teaching me how to use an axe.”

He frowns at that. “Katniss, I really don’t know if I’d trust her. We saw how she acted in the arena. She’s good at being two-faced.”

“You know, Peeta, maybe you should just trust my judgment for once,” I say. “We’re just teaching each other some weapon skills. We’re not getting married at dawn. Calm down.”

He opens his mouth as if to say something, but changes his mind and walks off, annoyed. Great. That doesn’t make us look like we’re hopelessly in love. And now I have no one to eat lunch with. I catch Johanna’s eye and decide to join her, Finnick, and their respective district partners at their table.

Finnick’s district partner is an old lady named Mags, and I recognize Johanna’s district partner Blight from the parade. Mags is mute and Blight doesn’t talk much, so Johanna and Finnick dominate the conversation. They spend the entire lunch debating who would win if it was down to the two of them in the arena.

“What do you think?” Finnick asks me. “The mighty trident versus a puny axe. Who triumphs?”

I shrug in response. Even though they’re joking, this topic is too close to reality for my taste.

“Now that I know how to use a bow, I can shoot you from a distance,” Johanna says. “So I would win.” This sets off another round of arguing, because Finnick thinks he could deflect an incoming arrow with his trident.

After lunch Johanna wastes no time walking over to the axe station. She throws an axe at me without any warning and I just manage to catch it before the handle breaks my nose.

I wouldn’t have been surprised if Johanna had rushed my lesson to get it over with. But she actually does a good job teaching me how to handle an axe. Three hours later I’m hacking limbs off of dummies she’s set up with relative ease. After I throw the axe into the chest of a dummy I look to her for approval. I’m expecting some insults, maybe a swear or two. But she actually looks proud, a small smile on her face, the first smile I’ve seen on her that doesn’t have a hint of smugness.

"Pretty good," she says, which makes me far happier than it should. Before I can respond Atala distracts me by announcing that training time for the day is over, and when I turn back to Johanna she's already left.

-

I have a hard time reading Haymitch’s expression when me and Peeta meet up with him that afternoon. “You must have done something to impress the other victors. Even Brutus wants to ally up with you.”

“I don’t want Brutus,” I say. “The only person I want as an ally so far is Johanna.”

“About that,” Haymitch says. “I’m pretty sure I told you to spend time making allies. Notice the plural? From what I’ve heard, you spent the entire day with the lumberjack.”

I glare at Peeta, who’s not looking at me. “What, so you report everything I do back to Haymitch?”

“I’m mad at him too,” Haymitch says.

“Why?” Peeta asks.

“I shouldn’t have to remind you two that you’re desperately in love,” Haymitch says. “That means, least of all, eating lunch together.”

“So who do you have spying on us?” I ask.

Haymitch ignores my question. “Tomorrow, I want you to spend time with everyone. Including the Careers. And if you aren’t deeply staring into each other’s eyes over soup at lunch, I’ll come down there and force you to hold hands myself. And Katniss-”

I leave before Haymitch can finish his sentence. I’m sick of being lectured. I’m sick of being treated like a child even though I’m already a veteran of the Games. So what if I spent the entire day with Johanna? I learned a new skill that could save my life. And I should be able to ally up with whoever I want.

I slam the door to my room behind me, and the loud bang shakes me back to my senses. If Haymitch is treating me like a child, it’s probably because I’m acting like one. Ignoring his advice after it saved me the first time I was in the Games is nothing short of stupid. The more I think about it, the more ashamed I feel; as always, I’ve let my pride come in the way of reason.

Peeta comes into my room half an hour later we both make up. I can’t tell who apologizes more, me or him. Even though it’s grating to constantly be romantic with him, Peeta is one of the few people left in the world I’m close too. And as much as he’s annoyed me over the past few days, I’m still going to make sure he comes out of that arena alive.

I make sure to follow Haymitch’s orders the next day, spending at least some time with almost all of the victors. District 3 teaches me about force fields, and Mags teaches me how to make a fish hook. But even when I’m with the other victors, I keep stealing glances at Johanna. She mostly hangs around with Finnick, learning how to tie knots and throw tridents. Once I look over and she’s naked again, oiling up her body for a wrestling lesson. I blush more than necessary and look away.

I want these days to last as long as possible, since they’ll likely be my last. Instead they fly by. Before I know it, the training sessions are over, and then the performance in front of the Gamemakers is over too. When I tell Haymitch about hanging Seneca Crane in front of the Gamemakers, I can’t help but wish that Johanna was hearing my story instead. She’d probably laugh and give me a high five instead of a lecture.

The day before the interviews, Effie cancels our practice session, giving Peeta and me one day to do anything we want. Peeta chooses to spend his free time painting something for his family as a “final present” (I cringe at his choice of words). I decide to go up to the roof to look at the gardens. When I’m up there surrounded by the flowers, I can close my eyes and almost convince myself that I’m home. The prospect of several hours of uninterrupted peace is so appealing that, for the first time in ages, I almost feel content.

However, when I open the door to the roof, I quickly realize I’m not alone.

“Want a drink?” Johanna asks, gesturing with a beer bottle. She’s sitting at the edge of the roof, her legs dangling over the side. She doesn’t turn to look at me as I approach her, her eyes glazed over as she gazes at some point off in the horizon.

“I don’t want to be hungover for the interview,” I say.

“I’m not planning to be hungover,” Johanna says, taking a swig from the bottle. “I’m planning to still be drunk.”

“You’re going to make a fool out of yourself in front of the sponsors,” I warn. Effie’s constant nagging must be wearing off on me.

“Who cares about sponsors anyway.”

“Anyone with the will to live?”

“Exactly,” she says.

Oh.

I take a seat next to her, but I keep my feet from hanging over the side. Although I know there’s a force field to propel me backwards if I fall, I don’t care for the feeling of imbalance. Several minutes of silence pass while Johanna continues to nurse her drink.

“So. . . You and Finnick?” I ask, trying to start a conversation. I know I’m making an assumption, but it doesn’t seem like a very big leap to assume the two are together.

It must to Johanna, because she laughs.

“Finnick’s got a girl named Annie,” she says.

“Yeah? And who do you got?” I ask.

“Me.”

“Tough break,” I say. “That’s a hard person to deal with.”

“Yup,” she confirms. “A real bitch.” She offers me the beer again. “Are you sure you don’t want some of this? It’s some fancy Capitol shit, made from the blood of young virgins or something. It probably costs a hundred bucks. I can’t be sure because I stole it, but it tastes expensive.”

I don’t even bother asking how she managed to steal something with cameras watching our every movement. “Peeta will kill me if he smells alcohol on my breath.”

“Sounds like a real hardass.”

“You were right, you know,” I say. “About us.”

Where did that come from? Only three days ago I had promised to myself that I would follow Haymitch’s advice. But here I am, telling the truth about Peeta and me. Yes, it’s a truth that Johanna has already figured out, but I shouldn’t be admitting it. I cringe as I wait for her response, wishing I could take back my words.

But all Johanna says is, “Yeah.”

“I mean, he means a lot to me, but I don’t-”

“You don’t have to explain it to me,” she says. “I understand.”

I understand. Somehow she has said the exact thing I didn’t even know I was hoping to hear. I understand. That has got to be one of the most beautiful sentences in English. Much better than “I love you,” which I’ve decided is entirely overrated.

“Thanks,” I say, smiling.

“So tell me, how’d you score a twelve?” Johanna asks. She laughs gleefully when I tell her about hanging Seneca Crane, just as I knew she would. “I wish I’d thought of that!” she says.

“What did you do?” I ask, trying to remember Johanna’s score. It was something rather low- a four or five, I think.

“Oh, I swung my axe around for a bit, but that got boring pretty fast, so I recited some of my favorite poems.”

“Poems?”

“Limericks.” She recites one for me:

_There once was a man from the Capitol,_  
 _Who was such a fucking asshole_  
 _He was as dumb as a brick_  
 _And also a dick_  
 _Fuck the fucking Capitol_

“I’m surprised they didn’t give you a one,” I say, laughing.

“That shows how impressive I am with an axe,” she brags. She finishes her beer and chucks the bottle off the roof. Predictably, it flies back and shatters on the ground. She shrugs. “Oops. Hey, I’ve heard there are gardens up here. I want to go see them.”

We spend the next hour or so walking through the gardens. Just like me, Johanna says the gardens remind her of home. She gets a wistful look in her eye whenever we pass by a plant native to District 7. I stop and stare at her when she bends over and smells one of the flowers. It’s so unlike her normal rebellious persona that it could almost be funny, but it isn’t at all. It’s sad.

I’m in the middle of giving Johanna some tips on how to find edible plants when she interrupts me.

“Shit, what time do you think it is?”

“Around noon?”

“Fuck, I gotta be somewhere. I’ll see you.” Before I can ask her where she’s going or say goodbye she’s leapt to her feet and is running down the stairs. And even though I came up to the roof for solitude, I miss her when she’s gone.


	3. Johanna

Johanna’s late to the meeting. Of course. It takes a long time to walk from the roof all the way down to the third floor, especially when one must look as casual as possible for the cameras while doing so. By the time she knocks on District 3’s door, the meeting’s been over for ten minutes, and everyone except Finnick and Haymitch has already left. Haymitch is not happy at all.

“You know how important these meetings are,” he scolds her.

These secret meetings have been a regular occurrence ever since the victors arrived in the Capitol. At least one person from every district attends, except the districts Haymitch doesn’t trust- 1, 2, 5, 9, and 10. They always take place in District 3’s room because Beetee’s invented some device that causes all nearby cameras to loop. The other day, Johanna convinced Beetee to give her a prototype by claiming she needed to obtain some important Capitol data. So far she’s managed to steal several beers and a nice shirt.

“Where were you?” Finnick asks.

“I was up at the roof, talking to Katniss,” Johanna tells them. “Getting to know her. Isn’t that important?”

“You aren’t here to paint each other’s nails and gossip about boys,” Haymitch says. “You’re here to save her life.” He shakes his head. “I’ve got to get back to my floor before the boy gets suspicious. Finnick will tell you what you missed.”

Finnick fills in Johanna on everything that was discussed during the meeting. While in the arena, Haymitch will communicate with the victors in the alliance by sending down parachutes of bread that will indicate the time and day of the escape. Johanna has been assigned to protect District 3 while Finnick will look after Katniss and Peeta. Plutarch Heavensbee has designed the arena to hold a source of electricity and has ensured a spool of wire will be available at the Cornucopia. District 3 will use to wire and the electricity to destroy the force field. But before escaping, everyone’s trackers must be removed. By force, if necessary.

“Haymitch said Katniss didn’t want any allies,” Johanna points out.

Finnick shows a golden bracelet to Johanna. “Haymitch says that if I show Katniss this, she’ll ally with me.”

What, Haymitch trusts Finnick with Katniss more than he trusts her? She knows Haymitch far better than Finnick does! They’ve been drinking buddies for several years now, bonding over bottles of wine while watching the tributes they’ve mentored die bloody deaths on screen. Haymitch must have made a mistake. “Give it to me,” she says, holding out her hand.

“Do you want to wear it? I never took you to be fond of jewelry-”

“Give it,” she demands more forcefully.

“Why?”

“I want to look after Katniss, not Nuts and Volts. You know how insane those two drive me. Nuts can’t finish a sentence and Volts won’t shut up about things nobody understands. At least Katniss knows how to hold a conversation.”

“I’m keeping it,” Finnick says firmly.

“Haymitch probably wants me to have it,” Johanna points out.

“Haymitch specifically told me not to give it to you,” Finnick says, and Johanna wonders if being Haymitch’s drinking buddy isn’t exactly a point in her favor.

“Finnick, you. . . I. . .” But she can’t think of any rational reason for why he should give her the bracelet, so she just throws her hands into the air and storms out of the room, grumbling under her breath the entire time. “Gossip about boys, what does that mean, I don’t even like boys. . .”

Since Johanna is a tribute and not a mentor, she’s restricted to the Training Center and can’t go out to her favorite bars. So she steals a bottle of whiskey and retreats to her room. She offers to share the bottle with Blight and her “mentors,” Max and Genner, but they turn it down. It’s ridiculous to have mentors when she herself has been training people for years now. Their first day in the Capitol Max and Genner tried to give her and Blight advice, and it felt so ridiculous that they didn’t attempt it again. Now nobody even stops Johanna from drinking whiskey until she passes out on the couch.

In the morning, she’s woken up rather harshly by her prep team. Her head is pounding from the alcohol, so when she hears them approach she buries her head in between the couch cushions in a feeble attempt to hide. But after several years of dealing with Johanna her prep team has no patience left for her. They force her to a sitting position and rub her face with a cold washcloth. Johanna practically hisses at them.

She had been much nicer to them the first year she was in the Capitol, the year of her Games. She had pretended to be wowed by their Capitol style, grateful for the way they primped and plucked at her body, ecstatic at the idea of being dressed as an oak. She was the very essence of a sweet, innocent, naïve girl who had no real chance of winning the Games. A girl who just wanted to enjoy her last few days alive. She dropped the act the second she came out of the arena, drenched in a thirteen-year-old kid’s blood. Now, with every consecutive year she has had to deal with them, the more apparent she makes her utter loathing. Cleo, her stylist, bears the brunt of Johanna’s hatred. Cleo hasn’t even arrived yet; she always avoids Johanna for as along as possible.

“So what am I wearing this time?” Johanna asks her prep team as they paint her nails gold, one of them holding her wrist with a much tighter grip than necessary. They exchange nervous glances. “Fuck me,” Johanna swears.

An hour later Johanna is, once again, in a tree dress. The fabric’s supposed to emulate the texture of bark, which means it’s rough against Johanna’s skin and itches. The high neckline clamps tightly around her neck and makes her feel like she’s being choked (and she should know, in her Games she had almost been choked to death by a tribute from District 2). The fake lashes her prep team attaches are several inches long and stick together when she blinks. At least there’s no crown of branches, but her hair is twisted up into an awkward bun that rests right above her forehead.

Cleo finally makes an appearance to approve Johanna’s final look. Cleo’s own outfit is completely ridiculous, some kind of see-through mesh thing that covers her entire body, including her face. Sometimes Johanna wonders if the Capitol is just one huge practical joke that got way out of hand.

“I’m so glad that I’m a tree again,” Johanna says as Cleo adds final touches to Johanna’s make up. “It brings out the brown in my eyes. And it’s such a fucking original idea, it’s not at all like the last five dresses I’ve worn. But it’s important you don’t strain yourself too much, thinking of new designs. I’m sure all the other victors will be so impressed by this masterpiece. Yeah, my portrayal of a twig is sure to strike fear into their hearts. You see what Cinna’s able to do, why can’t you do that, and give me something I’d actually like to wear for fucking once?”

“I could try setting you on fire,” Cleo mutters under her breath. Johanna hears her and laughs.

“I wish you would, it’d be less painful then having to be interviewed in this fucking piece of motherfucking shit.”

Her interview, however, ends up going quite well. It marks the third time Johanna’s sworn at the Capitol in less than a week. In a way, she sees it as her responsibility. She’s voicing what the other victors wish they could say but can’t. She walks off the stage feeling quite proud of herself.

Cleo immediately starts fussing over Johanna’s dress again, trying to fix it before she has to join the stage with the other victors. She instead makes it worse. “No, it goes up-” Johanna rolls her eyes and tugs angrily at her neckline when Katniss walks up.

For the first time, Johanna is underwhelmed by one of Cinna’s designs. “Really? A wedding dress?”

“Snow made me wear it,” Katniss says, and Johanna softens. Katniss still has loved ones she needs to protect- her little sister, her mom, her cousin. This wedding dress is designed to look like a statement of love, and while the people of the Capitol will see it as romantic, that’s not what it is at all. It’s a reminder; a reminder that Katniss is completely under Snow’s control. The more she looks at the cloying dress, the angrier Johanna gets. Not because of everything the Capitol’s done to her. No, she’s pissed because of everything the Capitol’s threatening to do to Katniss. She steps towards Katniss and straightens the string of pearls carefully, her fingers brushing against the bare skin of her neck.

“Make him pay for it,” she says, still holding the necklace, still holding Katniss’s gaze. She doesn’t let go until Katniss is called on stage for her interview. Then she notices Finnick has been standing off to the side, watching her the entire time. He walks up, and at first, Johanna thinks he’s going to tell her off for yelling during her interview. But instead he presses the golden bracelet into her hand.

Her fingers clutch around the bracelet as if she’s afraid someone’s going to take it from her. “What made you change your mind?” Johanna asks softly.

“The way you look at her- it’s the same way you used to look at Maris,” he says. Before Johanna can contemplate the truth of that statement, they’re being pushed onstage again to stand on the platform with the other victors. Johanna quickly slips the bracelet under her sleeve.

Katniss is just beginning her interview with Caesar when Johanna takes her place next to Blight. The first time Johanna saw Katniss on camera, she was nervous and slightly shaky. But being taped constantly for a year has improved Katniss’s stage presence. The Capitol audience is fawning over every sentence she utters. When Katniss offers to twirl her dress for the audience, they cheer and hoot, and Johanna rolls her eyes. There’s a difference between suffering through these interviews and actively encouraging Caesar and the audience. But when Katniss starts to twirl, the bottom of her dress bursts into flames.

For a split second, Johanna’s overwhelmed with fear for Katniss and almost runs forward to help her. Then she remembers that this is one of Cinna’s trademarks and feels rather brainless herself. So she just stares, stunned, as Katniss’s dress transforms into a Mockingjay. And now she’s feeling foolish for two reasons: One, for thinking that Katniss was in danger; and two, because that dress is a more meaningful display of defiance towards the Capitol than any of Johanna’s colorful rants ever were. Johanna’s both pissed at being upstaged and- if she’s being completely honest- a little turned on.

Katniss joins the victors on the platform and Peeta comes on stage. While his tuxedo doesn’t undergo a fiery transformation, he drops the bombshell that Katniss is pregnant, which gets an even larger reaction from the audience. Johanna’s stomach twists in envy at the news, even though she instantly realizes it’s just a lie, a trick to try to cancel the Games. Have fun keeping up that charade, Katniss, she thinks bitterly.

The audience is at their feet, screaming at Caesar as Peeta takes his own place on the platform. As the anthem blares, signaling the end of the show, a strange thing happens. Out of the corner of her eye Johanna can see the victors hold hands. She grabs Blight’s without hesitation and hoists it high into the air. She’s known these victors for years. Even though they’re all from different districts, they’ve experienced something that no one else has. Something that no one else could begin to understand. In less than a day it’s likely Johanna will have to kill at least one of the other victors in the arena. But for now, they show their solidarity; the districts against the Capitol. Then the lights shut off.

In the confusion that follows, Johanna tries to catch up to Katniss, but Peacekeepers cut her off when Katniss and Peeta board the elevator. Finnick, instead, appears at Johanna’s side.

“That was eventful,” Johanna says. “Do you think-”

“Quiet,” one of the Peacekeepers orders.

“But-”

“Get in the elevator,” the Peacekeeper barks, pushing them into the doors that have just opened. He follows them into the elevator, ensuring that Johanna and Finnick can’t speak to each other.

It’s torture, being so close to Finnick and not being able to say anything to him. What would she even say? Goodbye? Stay safe? Don’t fuck up? In place of words she grabs his hand tightly and holds on for the short ride to the fourth floor.

When the doors open, Johanna squeezes his hand once as a goodbye. The Peacekeeper grabs Finnick’s arm and escorts him off the elevator. But Finnick has one last thing to say to Johanna. “You take care of her.” Then the doors close behind him and he’s gone. 

-

It’s only a manner of minutes now. Johanna paces around the Launch Room, unable to keep still. The fear she’s been suppressing with alcohol and overconfidence is refusing to be ignored any longer. It makes itself known in every inch of her body- in her hands that are shaking, in her stomach that’s tying itself into knots, in her heart that’s pounding. In the last couple of years, there have been times when Johanna wished she was dead. But now that it’s an actual possibility she refuses to go out without a fight. There’s a revolution on the horizon, and she’ll be pissed if she misses it.

Her nerves aren’t calmed by the fact that the only person in the Launch Room with her is Cleo, who’s blatantly ignoring her. Two can play at that game, and as Johanna paces she keeps her eyes focused on her hands, absentmindedly tracing her scars. Some of the scars are innocent, like the one she got when she was seven and nicked herself on an axe while helping her father cut wood. Then there’s the scars that bring back awful memories, like the one she got when a tribute from 9 tried to defend herself before Johanna smashed her head in. Then there’s a long burn mark from the fire. Johanna doesn’t want to think about that so she turns her attention from her hands to her wrist, where the golden bracelet is resting. She touches the cool metal and finds it oddly comforting. At least Katniss will be with her in the arena.

“All tributes, prepare for launch,” a voice announces.

Johanna enters the tube and looks into her stylist’s eyes. For one brief instant, Johanna feels a rush of affection for poor Cleo, whom she’s tormented all these years. She should apologize for everything she’s said in the past, for all the hurt she’s caused this stupid Capitol woman.

“Well,” Cleo says with a slight shrug before Johanna can speak, her voice dripping with apathy. “Good luck.”

And there goes the momentary compassion Johanna felt. “Fuck you,” she says as the glass slides down, encasing her. “Your dresses suck.”

There are much worse last words, Johanna thinks as her tube ascends into the arena.

She smells the water before she sees it. She can almost taste the salt. District 4 smelled the same way when she visited it on her Victory Tour. She thanks Simon for teaching her how to swim. She can’t swim well, but at least she won’t be killed within the first few minutes of the game. Surrounding the water is a jungle, which fills her with relief. She already has an advantage over the Careers since she’s able to climb and cut down trees with ease. As the announcer counts down from 60, Johanna scans the Cornucopia for an axe. She spots two just to her right, next to the mouth of the Cornucopia. She can’t stop the grin that spreads across her face; she knows the footage of her will make her look like a psychopath, but she doesn’t give a shit. Seeing her favorite weapons is comforting, like running into an old friend. Her odds of survival have skyrocketed.

The announcer’s at 10, and Johanna searches for Katniss. She finds her on her far right, party hidden by the Cornucopia. To Johanna’s surprise, Katniss is panicking. She’s panting heavily and her face is bright red. Johanna doesn’t have time to wonder what’s gotten her so riled up when the gong rings out and she dives into the water.

She swims as fast as possible to the nearby strip of land leading to the Cornucopia, her arms striking the water in even strides. While she makes good progress, she’s thankful she doesn’t have to swim too far. She pulls herself onto the land strip and sprints towards the axes. She grabs them and then, without breaking her pace, runs straight to Katniss. Katniss has grabbed a bow from the Cornucopia and is sending an arrow into the ankle of one of the Careers when Johanna reaches her.

“Brainless!” Johanna shouts at her, hoping the nickname is enough to communicate all Johanna needs to- that she’s here as an ally, not an enemy. It doesn’t work. Katniss spins around, directing her next arrow at Johanna’s heart. Johanna stops short. “Shooting me,” she says, “Would not be a smart move.” She brings up her right hand to show Katniss Haymitch’s bracelet, but because she’s still holding her axe Katniss tightens her grip on the bow. Johanna rolls her eyes in frustration and waves her wrist front of Katniss’s face. “See this, brainless?”

A flash of recognition crosses Katniss’s face as she stares at the bracelet. She lowers her bow and Johanna smiles. Then her face turns hard as she spots the District 5 male victor running up behind Katniss with a knife. “Duck!” she shouts. Johanna throws her axe over Katniss’s head and hits the man square in the chest. She runs to him and yanks her weapon out of his corpse. “Fuck One and Two,” Johanna says. “Kill them on sight.”

“Each take one side?” Katniss asks. Johanna nods and runs to the left. She has little use for any of the weapons displayed, her axes the clearly superior option. Out of the corner of her eye she sees Finnick dive his trident into a victor’s chest. Beetee is on the ground; he’s tightly clutching the spool of wire, but somehow he’s been injured. He manages to get to his feet, though, so his injury must not be too serious. Blight and Wiress are running towards Finnick, each armed with their own weapons. Johanna and Finnick make eye contact for a second, and Finnick nods. As of now, everything’s going according to plan. Johanna runs back to Katniss.

“Did you kill anyone yet?” Johanna asks Katniss, who shakes her head. “Why don’t you start with him?” she says, pointing to Brutus who's sprinting towards them. Katniss fires an arrow but Brutus avoids it by diving into the water.

“Where’s Peeta?” Katniss asks frantically. Johanna shrugs. She’s been so concerned about Katniss that she’s forgotten how important it is to keep Peeta alive as well. Looking around, she spots Mags waving her arms in the air, pointing to the water. Katniss and Johanna run over to where Peeta is grappling with some other victor. Katniss starts to dive in after Peeta, but Johanna grabs her arm at the last second and pulls her back. When both of the men disappear under the water, Katniss struggles against Johanna’s grip, but she holds on tightly until Peeta comes up victorious.

“Let’s get out of here before one of us gets speared,” Johanna says as Katniss grabs Peeta’s arm and hauls him onto land. The Careers are starting to gather by the Cornucopia, which means Finnick, District 3 and Blight must have run to the jungle in the opposite direction.

Mags expectantly pulls on Johanna’s arm. “What do you want?” Johanna snaps.

“Pick her up,” Katniss orders.

“Me? Do I look like I’m from District 6?”

“I’ve got her,” Peeta says to avoid an argument, throwing Mags on his back.

“I’ll take the front. You guard the back, Katniss. Peeta, stay between us.” Yielding her axes, Johanna leads them into the jungle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Get it? "Do I look like I'm from District 6" 'cause District 6 is transport. . . and Johanna doesn't want to carry Mags. . . damn that is some good writing, I should get paid for this.  
> From now on this fic will probably take more influence from the movie than the book. And as you can see, it's going a bit AU as well.  
> And I've officially decided that this is going to cover all of Mockingjay as well. Hopefully the next chapter should be up in two weeks or so.  
> Thanks to everyone who's left kudos! It really makes a difference.


	4. Katniss

The sun beats down on us as we run through the jungle. I keep a tight grip on my bow, but since we left the Careers at the beach I doubt we’ll be attacked. I wipe away the sweat that’s gathered on my forehead and take note of my dry throat. Right now, the greatest threat to my life is the extreme heat.

That, and possibly Johanna.

“Wait, we gotta stop,” Johanna says, holding out her hand. We take a moment to compose ourselves, to catch our breaths. Peeta isn’t taking his eyes off of Johanna, even when he kneels down to let Mags slide off of his back. He’s suspicious, then. Should I be suspicious? Or thankful to have someone on my side?

The boom of the cannon interrupts my thoughts. Three more dead. Johanna smiles at the sound. I’ve become familiar with this type of smile from watching the previous Games. This celebration of another’s death because your own chances of survival have increased. Johanna, the underdog, grinned quite a bit during her own Games every time the cannon boomed. I shouldn’t judge; we can’t be held fully accountable for what we do while we’re in the arena. But it’s still unsettling.

“Three days ago you were telling me which victor was the biggest flirt, and now you’re smiling at their deaths?” I say.

She glares at me. “As long as it’s not Finnick, I don’t give a shit. And it isn’t Finnick, because Finnick can take care of himself.”

“And Peeta and I can’t? Is that why Haymitch gave you the bracelet?” I ask. I’m taken aback at the bitterness in my tone. When it comes down to it, if I had to choose an ally, it would have been Johanna. She’s already saved my life once. But I’m angry that Haymitch thinks he can make that decision for me. The implication of being looked after, of being babysat, rubs me the wrong way.

“No, he gave it to me because he thought it’d bring out the flecks of gold in my eyes,” Johanna says. She leans towards me until her face is only an inch away from mine. Batting her eyelashes, she purrs, “Can you see them?”

She’s trying to fluster me again. Why is everything with Johanna a challenge? Determined not to show any weakness, I stare right back at her. She holds my gaze unblinkingly for several seconds before turning away. My neck and face are burning. “It’s hot,” I say, hoping that will explain my blush. “We need to find water.”

“We’ll run into some if we keep going,” Johanna says.

“You don’t know that,” Peeta says.

“Yeah, I do. All of us keeling over from dehydration? That’s no fun,” she replies. “No one would get to see me use Blood and Guts here.”

I’m not sure what she’s talking about until she holds up her axes. “You named them?”

“Like you didn’t name your bow,” Johanna says. “We should go. Peeta, grab Mags.” She walks off into the jungle, swinging one of her axes at a vine.

I move to follow her, but Peeta catches my arm. “Are you sure we can trust her?” he whispers into my ear.

“I think so,” I whisper back. “She saved me from getting a knife in the back at the Cornucopia. And she does have Haymitch’s approval.”

“Come on, slowpokes,” Johanna yells, “What’s the hold up?”

I shake my arm out of Peeta’s grip. “It’s two of us against one,” I remind him. “Three, if you count Mags. Johanna couldn’t kill us if she wanted too.” He doesn’t seem completely reassured, but he lets Mags climb onto his back and follows Johanna.

We set off into the jungle at a steadier pace. The heat has already exhausted all of us. Johanna leads the way, rhythmically chopping away the low-hanging vines with her axes. I keep an arrow drawn, on alert for any hostile victors.

Something in front of Johanna catches my eye, and it isn’t another victor. I slow down, squinting, unsure if I imagined it. But I see it again- a ripple, a flaw, a chink in the armor.

“Johanna, no!” I scream, just as she slams her axe into the force field.

The instant her blade hits the invisible wall it explodes in a shower of sparks, propelling her backwards with such force that she collides into Peeta and Mags. I stagger back several steps, tripping over a root and hitting the ground hard. For a second, I lie there, trying to figure out what happened. I never knew force fields had that kind of power. And if I was blown backwards by the force of the explosion, what happened to Johanna, who was right against it? I sit up. Several feet away from me, Johanna lies on the ground, motionless.

“Johanna?” I crawl over to her. Her eyes are closed, her face blank, her chest still. I press my ear against her chest, straining to hear her heartbeat. But there’s nothing there. “She’s not breathing!” I cry out desperately to Mags and Peeta, who are recovering from the explosion themselves. But what can they do? I shake her, slap her face. “Johanna!”

A hand taps my shoulder, and Mags kneels down next to me. She places her hands on Johanna’s chest and presses down softly three times. She points to me, then Johanna. I recognize the movement she’s making. It something my mother’s done before in an attempt to restart someone’s heart. But Mags isn’t strong enough to do it herself. I take her place and pump down with the same rhythm, ignoring the fact that this method has never been successful for my mother.

For several slow, agonizing minutes, I push down on Johanna’s lifeless chest. Occasionally Mags stops me to pinch Johanna’s nose and breathe air into her lungs. Peeta keeps a look out, pacing nervously behind us.

As another minute passes by, I begin to lose hope of bringing Johanna back. “C’mon, Johanna,” I plead. Just as I’m preparing myself for the cannon, I hear a small cough.

“Johanna?” I stop and press my fingers against her neck. There I find her pulse, weak but steady. Her eyes snap open and she gasps for air.

“The fuck?” she says. I let out a short laugh, giddy from relief. “The fuck was that?”

“There was a force field!” I say, my voice wavering. “Your heart stopped!” She looks at me, bewildered. I try to explain more, but my voice catches in my throat and I let out a sob. I didn’t even realize I’ve been crying, but tears are streaming down my face. I wipe them away, embarrassed.

“Do you want to stand up?” I ask. She nods and I offer her my hand. She takes it and I help her up. Her legs are weak, though, and she loses her balance. I wrap my arms around her before she can fall and pull her into a tight hug, tangling one of my hands in her hair.

“Hey, I’m okay now,” she says, resting her chin on my shoulder and patting my back softly. I know, but I can't stop shaking.

“We should go,” Peeta says after several seconds. “We’ve made a lot of noise. Someone might come looking.”

I nod and let go of Johanna, who’s steadier now. She picks up her weapons and we head off again.

I take the lead this time, unwilling to put Johanna in anymore danger. I grab a handful of nuts that have dropped from trees and toss them ahead to detect the force field.

Why am I so happy that Johanna’s alive? If we had left her for dead, I would have been saved the job of killing her. Because there’s no sugarcoating it- if Peeta is to be the victor, then Johanna must die. Maybe not in the near future, but eventually. As long as she’s alive, she’s an obstacle. A threat, even. That’s what my rational mind is saying.

So why can’t I stop grinning?

Because I like Johanna; it’s as simple and as complicated as that. If we had met in District 12, she might have joined Madge as one of my few friends. Instead, we met right before being sent into an arena to kill one another. What luck I have.

I shake my head. This is the last thing I need. More feelings. Next time I see Beetee, I’m going to ask him if he can invent something to rid my brain of all these conflicting emotions. Next time. . . if there is a next time. One of those cannons could have easily been for him.

With Peeta carrying Mags, Johanna in pretty bad condition, and all of us weary of running into the force field, we make slow progress. Ten minutes pass and there’s still no sign of water. I decide it’s pointless to wander around like this when we’re so dehydrated.

“Hang on,” I say, walking over to the base of the nearest tree. “I’m going to get a better view.”

“I’ll do it,” Johanna says between heavy breaths. “Honestly, I’m offended you didn’t ask. Lumber, remember?”

“Are you kidding me? You can hardly walk,” I say. She ignores me, grabs on to one of the lower branches, and hoists herself up. She climbs three feet before she stops, pauses, and drops down.

“I just remembered that my horoscope said I should avoid high places today,” she says casually, trying to hide how exhausted she is. I roll my eyes and climb the tree myself.

When I come down, I can only deliver bad news. “The force field’s a dome. We’re at the edge of the arena. I couldn’t find any signs of fresh water.” I look at Johanna. She’s leaning against the tree, still struggling to catch her breath. Her skin is pale and she’s coated with sweat. I get the impression that if we walk for any longer, she’s going to collapse. And this time, she might not get back up. “Let’s set up camp,” I say. “We can try again in the morning.”

“I’ll take the first watch,” Peeta says. “The rest of you should try and get some sleep.”

Johanna sits down immediately, leaning against the tree. I join her. I count the arrows in my sheath while Johanna hugs her knees to her chest, staring off at some point in the distance.

“Are you feeling okay?” I ask.

“So I was dead.” I can't tell if it's a question or a statement.

“Not anymore,” I point out. I’m not used to being the optimistic one. And apparently I’m very bad at the role, because she grimaces at my response. “What’s wrong?”

“I should have known,” she says.

“Known what?”

“That there’d be nothing.”

Mags walks up to us before I can respond. She offers us a handful of nuts she’s found. Johanna thanks her and takes them, and Mags smiles at us before going off to collect more.

“So what are the odds she’s trying to poison us?” Johanna asks me. I’m about to tell her off for suspecting sweet old Mags when I notice the smile on her face. Right. A joke.

Johanna pours half of the nuts into my hands. She eats her share in one bite, gnashing them loudly between her teeth. I take my time, dragging out the meal as long as possible. It’s a pretty decent portion, but I’m so thirsty that I can’t appreciate my full stomach. Johanna falls asleep before I’m done eating, her head leaning back against the bark. I try my best to stay awake, not wanting to leave Peeta on his own, but I’m so tired from the day’s events that I drift off despite my intentions.

When I wake up, there’s an unfamiliar pressure on my shoulder. I’m about to grab my bow when I realize what it is. Johanna, in her sleep, has slid against me. Her forehead rests in the crook of my neck, and her hand has fallen on my knee. The unintentional intimacy makes me flush a deep red. Thankfully, Peeta’s facing away from us and hasn’t seen. I'm about to wake Johanna up and spare us the embarrassment of Peeta or Mags noticing when I get an idea. Johanna’s been playing so many games with me. Why shouldn’t I have fun for once?

I turn my head so my lips touch her ear. In the huskiest voice as I can muster, I whisper, “Good morning, sunshine.”

Johanna jerks awake, banging her head into my nose. When she notices how close she is to me she scoots away so quickly she tumbles over and lands on her back. The sight of Johanna flailing around out on the ground is one I’ll always cherish and well worth my now throbbing nose. I can’t stop laughing, even when Peeta tells me to shut up before I attract other victors. It’s only when the Capitol’s anthem blares that the smile drops off my face and the mood becomes somber.

We watch silently as the faces of the fallen victors flash across the sky. Nobody from the first four districts appears, so Johanna must have been right about Finnick being able to take care of himself. Wiress and Beetee are alive, so I might be able to ask about my emotion chip after all. Blight survived the first day too.

The final death toll is eight. I wonder how many of them Johanna’s sorry to see go. I glance over, but her face isn’t betraying any emotion. “No Careers,” she says. Then she adds, in a much softer tone, “Poor Cecelia.”

We sit there quietly until a beeping noise alerts us to an incoming parachute. I run over and open it eagerly, expecting something to relieve us of our thirst. But instead of a thermos of water, I find an odd tubular device that I can’t put a name to.

Johanna recognizes it right away. “It’s a spile.” She snatches it from my hand and walks over to a tree. Using the blunt side of her axe, she hammers it into the bark. “We use these all the time in 7. For syrup,” she tells us as she twists the spile around. A few moments later a steady stream of water trickles out. Johanna opens her mouth and takes several sips before cupping her hands and filling them. She walks over to Mags and gently pours the water into her awaiting mouth. Mags touches her face softly as a thanks, and Johanna smiles back at her.

The water has an amazing affect on all of us, especially Johanna, who’s now taking a much more light-hearted attitude towards her earlier brush with death. “I mean, how many people can say they’ve died? That’s some real impressive shit right there.”

“I’m the one who brought you back to life,” I point out.

“Shit, Katniss, stop making everything about you. You’re already the Girl on Fire, let me be the Girl Who Died or whatever,” Johanna says. I catch Peeta smiling at her. That’s good; he’s written her off as a threat. Makes things easier for me, since I’m not about to abandon Johanna any time soon.

A loud gong interrupts our conversation, chiming twelve times. Lightning follows, striking down on the tallest tree in the arena. I hold my breath, wondering if this is a signal for some new challenge, but after the lightning silence falls again.

I offer to take the next watch, since Peeta hasn’t slept yet and Johanna deserves all the sleep she can get. They agree and I take my place at the edge of our makeshift camp. The jungle’s so quiet that no one would be able to sneak up on us, so I allow my thoughts to drift as I stare out into the darkness.

Today has been so crazy that I’ve completely forgotten that I’m being filmed. Have I done enough for the cameras? I haven’t exactly been romantic with Peeta. Neither have I acted concerned for my “baby.” Maybe bringing Johanna back to life will impress some sponsors. Then again, she’s never been a Capitol favorite. The way she deceived everyone unnerved as many people as it impressed, if not more. Her kills were always brutal ones; it’s difficult to kill someone “cleanly” with an axe. And, strike three, she killed two of the younger kids. I’m sure some were wishing I’d slit her throat while I had the chance.

I’m so lost in my thoughts that I don’t notice the mist creeping towards us until it’s only several feet away. I watch it for a moment as it silently drifts across the grass, trying to figure out whether it’s a natural effect of the jungle or something more sinister. I reach out a hand, not wanting to cause panic if it’s normal fog. And it’s not. The instant I touch it, searing pain shoots down my hand.

“Run!” I scream. Peeta immediately jumps to his feet and grabs his machete, ready to protect me from the enemy. “Run, the fog is poison!” I shout out as I run away from it. Blisters have broken out on my skin. Johanna grabs her axes and takes off. Peeta swings Mags onto his back and follows.

We sprint through the jungle, Johanna taking the lead. The fog approaches us from all sides. Every time we seem to get ahead, it comes at us from a different angle and we’re forced to change direction. Just as we’ve begun to a put a decent amount of distance between us and the fog, my foot snags on a vine. I crash to my knees. I try to stand up, but the vine’s tangled around my foot. Johanna stops in her tracks and runs back to me. She untangles me, but the fog catches up before we get away, stinging our exposed skin. We hold onto each other as we run through the blinding pain. But Johanna’s still weak from the force field, and we only make it a few yards before she collapses on the ground.

I grab her arm and try to carry her, but the fog has taken a toll on me as well, and I almost pass out from the pain. Peeta runs up to us, sliding Mags off of his back. They also have blisters stretching across their faces.

“I can’t carry her!” I say. He looks from Mags to Johanna. It’s one or the other; he can’t help them both. “Johanna, please, try to stand,” I beg.

“Just go,” Johanna says, waving her arm weakly, her eyes screwed tight. “Go!”

“We can’t leave you!” I say. But the fog’s closing in, and I’m wondering if I’m going to have a choice. Before I have to make a decision, Mags makes one for me. Giving me a kiss on the cheek, she turns and walks straight into the fog.

“Mags!” Johanna shouts after her, but the cannon confirms there’s nothing to be done. Peeta grabs one of Johanna’s arms, I grab the other, and together we stumble away from the fog. But we’re not fast enough, and the fog burns our necks, our backs. We don’t notice the hill until we’re tumbling down it. My back slams into the dirt at the bottom. I lift my head up and stare hopelessly at the oncoming fog. It seems that Mags’s death was futile, since we’re all about to die anyway. But the fog doesn’t reach us. Instead, it soars upwards as if it has hit an invisible wall.

I rest my head back on the ground and stare at the dark sky, trying to focus on something through the pain. A large monkey stares back at me from one of the trees. I consider shooting an arrow at it, but I’m too weak, and it doesn’t seem interested in me anyway.

I push myself into a sitting position. Not too far from me moonlight reflects off of a still pool. I crawl towards it, hoping that the water will cool my burning skin. When I stick my hand into the water, the pain increases tenfold, then ebbs away as my blisters begin to dissolve. “The water helps,” I gasp out to Peeta.

I drag myself until I’m fully covered by the water, and Peeta joins me, both of us crying out in pain as we wash away our blisters. Once my skin's mostly clean, I stand up and look around for Johanna. She hasn’t moved from the base of the hill. She’s been hurt worse than Peeta and me, blisters covering every inch of exposed skin. I grab her hand and, with Peeta’s help, drag her to the pool. She lets out a blood-curdling scream when she comes into contact with the water. My stomach crawls at the noise, but I don’t stop pulling her until she’s fully submerged. She curses loudly and thrashes against me, trying to get away.

“It’ll help,” I say in what I hope is a soothing tone. She quits struggling and goes limp. I slide her back into the water and rest her head in my lap. Peeta retrieves our weapons then leaves to get fresh water from a tree. I scoop water onto Johanna’s forehead and run my fingers through her hair, trying to soak out the last of the poison. After a couple of minutes, she’s able to move around, and I coax her into a sitting position.

“I’m sorry about Mags,” I say. While I didn’t get the impression they were particularly close, they must have known each other for several years now, especially since Johanna is so close to Finnick.

She shakes her head, looking down at the water. “She was Finnick’s mentor. Half his family. He is going to be so. . .”

“What? Angry?”

“No,” she says, rubbing her hand violently. “Disappointed. In me.” She glances up at me, then shifts her gaze over my shoulder. She reaches for her axe and slowly stands up. “Look,” she says.

I turn around. While we’ve been washing, more monkeys like the one I saw in the tree have approached us. They’re huge, and they’re baring their teeth, surrounding us on all sides. I grab my bow as carefully as possible, trying not to make any sudden movements. Peeta’s out in the open, fiddling with the spile by a tree.

“Peeta, get over here,” Johanna orders.

Grabbing his machete and the spile, Peeta slowly makes his way over to us. The monkeys grow more and more agitated. They start hooting, shrieking, jumping up and down.

There’s no way we can fight them all off. I look around desperately for an escape. Between the trees, the rising sun glints off of the Cornucopia. It’s not too far away; we can make it. “Get to the beach,” I say.

Peeta, Johanna and I stand with our backs to each other, armed with our weapons. For a brief moment, nobody moves or breathes. Then Johanna swings one of her axes into the neck of one of the monkeys and I send an arrow at another’s head, and chaos erupts.

“Mutts!” I shout as I unload my arrows into as many monkeys as possible. But even with three of us we’re hardly able to protect ourselves. I see the beach again and debate sprinting to it, but before I can, I hear a loud screech. When I turn around I’m too late to defend myself against the monkey that’s jumped at me. It tackles me into the pool, pinning me down under the water. The monkey’s so heavy I can’t push it off of me. I’m using all my strength just to keep its teeth away from my throat. I’m running out of air when it suddenly goes limp. A hand reaches down and grabs my arm roughly, pulling me up. It’s Johanna.

“Run!” she yells, shoving me towards the beach. Peeta takes the lead and I follow.

We’re almost at the beach when one of Johanna’s axes gets stuck in a monkey’s corpse, leaving her vulnerable. I turn away from Peeta to protect Johanna, killing a monkey right before its teeth sink into her neck. I turn back to Peeta just in time to see another monkey launch itself at him. I load an arrow but it’s too late.

Where I have failed in protecting Peeta, someone else steps up. A frail woman jumps out from the trees and shields Peeta with her body. Peeta stabs the monkey with the machete, but the woman’s already been bitten. She falls to the ground, gasping for air.

“Who is that?” I ask, unable to place Peeta’s savior.

“A morphling,” Peeta says. “Help me get her.” Johanna covers us as Peeta and I drag her to the safety of the beach. It's too late for her, though, and as Peeta talks her through the colors of the sunrise, the morphling dies in our arms.


	5. Johanna

As Katniss and Peeta drag the Morphling into the water, Johanna spins around to confront the monkeys. Standing her ground, she swings her axes at them, baring her teeth for good measure. They screech to an abrupt halt at the edge of the jungle. Johanna smiles as she watches them retreat. “Smart choice,” she shouts after them.

Behind her, she can hear Peeta soothe the dying woman. She stays away. What with Mags walking into the fog and, hell, her own heart stopping, she’s had enough death for the day. She waits until the cannon booms to join the pair.

“She sacrificed herself for me, and I don’t even know her name,” Peeta says as the hovercraft’s arm swoops down and scoops up the Morphling’s body.

“You think she sacrificed herself?” Katniss asks.

“Looked like it,” Peeta says.

Johanna keeps her face as neutral as possible. District 6 was one of the districts informed about the plans to escape the arena. There’s no doubt in Johanna’s mind that the Morphling had purposefully taken Peeta’s place.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Katniss says.

“Katniss is right. She just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Johanna says with an air of finality. “I’m going to go clean my weapons. Blood and Guts have really earned their names today.”

While scrubbing her axes clean in the lake, several brightly colored fish swim around Johanna’s legs. Her stomach growls at the sight of them. She hasn’t eaten since last night, and a handful of nuts doesn’t fill one for long. During training, she spent some time hanging out with Finnick at the fishing station. She didn’t do much other than purposefully try to screw him up, but it had seemed pretty easy.

It doesn’t take long for Johanna to discover that axes aren’t the greatest weapon to fish with.

“I could try to make a fishhook. Or use my arrows. Or my hands. Or anything other than an axe,” Katniss says after ten minutes of watching Johanna accomplish nothing but scaring away all the fish.

“Fine. You try. I give up,” Johanna says, purposefully splashing the water as much as possible as she walks back to the beach. It turns out Katniss’s hunting skills are as impeccable in the lake as they are in the woods. Johanna watches moodily as Katniss picks off fish easily with her bow and arrow. Not even an hour later, she triumphantly returns with several fish skewered on arrows.

“Show off,” Johanna mutters.

The fish combined with several oysters Peeta has found makes for a pretty filling meal. As Johanna devours her second fish, her mind clears, allowing her to reflect on the day’s events. It sucks that Mags is dead. Really sucks. But Peeta and Katniss are safe, and they’re out of the jungle, and they’ve got food and a way to get fresh water. Things are going as well as they can in a battle to the death inside of an arena where everyone and everything is trying to kill you while you’re being taped for the amusement of shitheads and-

“Look,” Peeta says, cutting off Johanna’s train of thought. He holds up a pearl he found in one of the oysters. “For you,” he says, presenting it to Katniss.

“Thank you,” Katniss says, taking it with a smile.

Johanna’s relatively good mood disappears in a flash. She’s got no patience for this sappy love shit. She resists the urge to get up and storm away. Instead, she directs her anger into the oyster she’s eating, prying it open with such force that the shell breaks into two and goes flying through the air, interrupting the lovebird’s cloying moment.

“Are you okay?” Katniss asks, confused.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Johanna snarls.

Katniss shrugs, a little hurt. An awkward silence settles between them until they hear a piercing scream in the distance.

“That’s new,” says Peeta as they stand up.

Across the lake, a huge wave crashes through the trees with such force they bend. It smashes into the Cornucopia as the cannon booms, confirming the death of the victor caught in its path. Johanna didn’t recognize the scream off-hand. But there are only four women left besides her and Katniss: Wiress, Enobaria, Cashmere, and Tes, the District 5 victor.

Whoever it was, they didn’t have a chance. Even Finnick would probably have drowned in that monstrous wave. In comparison, her group’s been lucky. With the fog they could run away, and with the monkeys they could fight back, but what could Johanna have done to protect Katniss from a wave that size? She’s glad they’re out of the jungle now.

But the beach might not be much safer.

“Someone’s here,” Katniss says, drawing an arrow.

Johanna turns to where Katniss is aiming. Three bright red figures stumble out of the jungle. One of them runs straight to the lake while another walks in confused circles. Johanna hesitates, unable to tell if they’re mutts or victors. Then she spots the distinct silhouette of a trident.

“Finnick!” she yells as she runs towards him.

“Johanna!” he calls back. He throws his trident down angrily on the sand as she approaches him.

“What the fuck happened to you?” Johanna asks. Now that’s she’s closer, she can see that he’s coated with what seems to be blood. District 3 is with him- Beetee in the water, Wiress pacing around him in large, lopsided loops.

“Tick tock, tick tock,” Wiress chants. Finnick raises his voice and speaks over her.

“We went to the jungle, to avoid the Careers. It started raining, I don’t know, maybe an hour ago? But it wasn’t normal rain, of course not,” he says, gesturing at his red-stained skin. “Blood. It got into our eyes, blinded us.” Katniss and Peeta catch up, but Finnick ignores them, not taking his eyes off Johanna. He takes a deep breath. “Johanna, Blight. . . he ran into the force field. I tried to revive him, but we had to leave the jungle. We couldn’t breathe.”

So Blight’s dead. He and Johanna couldn’t really be called friends. Johanna had always found him to be a bit on the thick side, and his sentimentality, the way he wore his emotions on his sleeves, was off-putting to her. But they were the two victors closest in age in District 7, and they had mentored together once, so over the years they had found some common ground.

Blight’s talent was crafting wooden sculptures. They were surprisingly delicate for a man with such large hands. He had given Johanna one for her birthday several years ago. A tree house. At the time, Johanna had resented the gift. It reeked of pity. Like he’d only given it to her because he knew that she wouldn’t be getting presents from anyone else. But when Johanna was sent to the Capitol as a mentor the next year, she’d brought it. And in that cold and soulless world she had come to appreciate it. It was the one thing in the Capitol that felt real, that was real. It was a reminder of the home Johanna loved. The home she could never return to, not even when she went back to District 7. No, Johanna’s true home was something the Capitol had destroyed forever. The sculpture, reminiscent of Johanna’s childhood, helped take her back to when she still had a home. A time when she was happy.

She’d been nicer to Blight after that.

“Well. He wasn’t much, but he was from home,” Johanna says after a short pause. It might sound callous to the others, but it’s the highest compliment she can give.

“Where’s Mags? Isn’t she with you?” Finnick asks. When Johanna hesitates, he understands immediately. His eyes drop to the sand. “Was it quick?” he asks, his voice breaking on the last word.

“Over in a heartbeat,” Johanna promises.

“Tick tock, tick tock,” Wiress continues to chant.

“Could you just shut up for one second!” Finnick snaps. Johanna steps back, shocked. She’s never seen Finnick lose his temper. He seems surprised himself. “Sorry,” he apologizes unnecessarily to Wiress, the only one unfazed by his outburst.

“Tick tock,” she replies.

“What’s wrong with her?” Katniss asks.

“She’s in shock,” Beetee says, adjusting his glasses. “Dehydration isn’t helping. Do you have fresh water?”

“No, but we can get some,” Katniss says. “Come on, let’s get you cleaned up,” she says to Wiress, leading her into the water.

“You, too, Finnick,” Johanna says, placing her hand on his back and pushing him into the water. He dives in, turning the water around him a cloudy red. She grabs his trident and cleans it, scrubbing away the blood until it gleams silver again.

“What does Beetee have there?” Katniss asks as she washes the blood out of Wiress’s hair. Johanna glances over at Beetee, who’s on the beach rolling up wire.

“A coil? With some kind of wire,” she replies.

“Did he get it from the Cornucopia?”

“Yeah,” Finnick says, rubbing a hand through his hair. “He was stabbed when he grabbed it.”

Wiress gasps. “Tick tock, tick tock!” she repeats loudly. Finnick looks like he’s about to lose it, so Johanna takes his arm and leads him back towards the beach.

“He’s had enough. You stay with Nuts,” she tells Katniss. As she pulls Finnick away, the sky darkens and another round of lightning hits the large tree in the middle of the arena. Johanna wants to ask Finnick about the plan. Is the lightning the source of electricity Plutarch promised? Does that mean they could be rescued by the end of the day? But cameras will certainly pick up anything she says, so she just raises her eyebrow, and Finnick responds with a slight nod that’s meaningless to the Gamemakers.

“You missed a spot,” Johanna says. She reaches up and wipes away a red blotch above Finnick’s eyebrow with her thumb. Up close, she can see that his eyes are shiny with unshed tears. Johanna’s hit with a pang of guilt for not being able to save Mags from the fog. But she’s also relieved that the number of deaths they have to mourn is relatively few.

“Hey, Finnick? I’m really glad you’re not dead.”

“Same,” Finnick says simply. “Hey, what’s Katniss so excited about?” Katniss is practically jumping up and down in the water. “It’s a clock!” she shouts at them, waving them over and pointing to the Cornucopia.

“Let’s go see what she’s blabbing about,” Johanna says.

“This entire arena seems to be laid out like a clock, with a new threat every hour,” Katniss explains as they walk to the Cornucopia. She describes how the threats they’ve already run into- the blood, the fog, the monkeys- are constrained within their wedge. That explains why the monkeys retreated once they got to the beach (although Johanna decides that her menacing presence probably contributed).

Wiress, crouched near the edge of the Cornucopia, starts singing a song, some kind of child’s lullaby. Finnick tenses up; he’s clearly been listening to it for quite a while. He’s a saint, really, for being able to put up with Nuts for so long.

Peeta traces a crude map of the arena on the ground with the tip of his machete. Together, they’re able to label five of the wedges. Johanna looks at the other ones with apprehension- who knows what could be hiding in there?

Completely fixated on the map, Johanna doesn’t realize that Wiress is in danger until it’s too late. Before Johanna can react, Katniss has sent an arrow into the chest of Wiress’s murderer, Gloss. But he’s not the only Career at the Cornucopia. Cashmere comes out of nowhere from the left, a throwing knife in her hand, her aim directed at Katniss. Fear and pure adrenaline shoot through Johanna. She shoves Katniss out of the way and throws one of her axes at Cashmere. It connects with a crunch, and the cannon confirms her death. Finnick brings his trident down on Brutus, but Brutus blocks his attacks with his spear. Katniss shoots another arrow just as District 2 disappears behind the Cornucopia. Katniss gives chase and Johanna follows her without hesitation, her remaining axe drawn.

A sudden lurch sends Johanna flying. She hits the metallic floor of the Cornucopia hard and starts to slide down as the ground beneath her begins to spin. She splays out her hands and manages to cram her fingers into a crack in the metal. Katniss has grabbed on next to her, but her hold isn’t as secure, and she starts to slip. With a shout, Johanna lunges for Katniss, grasping her hand before she tumbles into the water. The added weight is causing her fingers to slip, so she adjusts her grip by jamming the tip of her axe into the crevice. The Cornucopia picks up speed until it’s spinning around so fast that everything is a blur except for Katniss. Katniss’s nails dig into her skin, and she shuts her eyes, holding on tighter through the pain. There’s no way she’s letting go of Katniss. Not even if she drags her into the water.

“Hold on!” Johanna shouts.

The centrifugal force has dislodged the weapons displayed at the Cornucopia. They start tumbling down the sides, a mass of blades and points. Johanna’s so focused on Katniss that she doesn’t notice the knife until it’s too late. It cuts across her shoulder, and Johanna lets out a grunt. Her eyes water from the pain, and her hand begins to slide down the handle of her axe. She looks down at Katniss, who’s realized that Johanna’s having trouble holding on. Her fingers purposefully loosen their grip on Johanna’s hand.

“No!” Johanna shouts. There’s no way Katniss is going to pull this hero crap on her. “I’ve got you, just fucking hang on!”

But Katniss, the stubborn idiot, has already made up her mind. She lets go, disappearing underneath the waves. And because Katniss isn’t the only idiot here, Johanna releases her hold on her axe and falls in after her.

The moment she hits the water she’s completely disoriented. She tumbles head over heels, thrashing wildly as she tries to get her bearings, to stop spinning. She kicks her legs, hoping that she’s propelling herself up towards the surface and not further down. The salt stings her eyes and leaves her unable to tell where the sun is. She’s almost out of breath when she breaks the surface. Gulping down air, she swerves around while treading water, searching for Katniss.

“Katniss?” she screams. Waves crash into her face, and she inhales some of the water. “Katniss!” she calls out in between coughs.

“I’m here!” Katniss says, and Johanna spots her climbing back onto the Cornucopia, which has stopped spinning. Feeling relieved (and a little foolish, because she did nothing to actually help Katniss), Johanna slowly paddles back to land.

“Now why’d you do a stupid thing like that,” Finnick grumbles as he reaches into the water and hauls her onto the Cornucopia. Johanna collapses on the metallic floor, coughing water out of her lungs.

“I lost my grip,” Johanna lies once the coughing subsides. “And my fucking axe,” she realizes. “Shit.”

“It’s at the bottom of the lake now,” Finnick says. “Next time think before you go diving in to save the pretty girl.”

“I wasn’t-”

“Sure you weren’t. Your other axe is in Cashmere. I’ll go get it before the hovercraft comes in.” As he dives into the water to retrieve Johanna’s weapon, Katniss walks up to Johanna, carrying the spool of wire.

“Are you an idiot?” Katniss asks, setting the wire down. “You almost drowned!”

“You’re very fucking welcome,” Johanna says.

“Why’d you jump in after me? You know I can swim.”

“Why’d you let go?” Johanna retorts.

“You were cut! I didn’t want to drag you down. You’ve already died once today, I’m trying to keep that number at a minimum.”

Johanna stands up, ready to call Katniss out for being such an ungrateful bitch, when her lungs spasm in another coughing fit. She bends over, her hands on her knees, and hacks out the last of the water. Katniss rubs her back, but if anything her close proximity makes it harder for Johanna to catch her breath.

“Let me see your shoulder,” Katniss says when Johanna stops coughing, her voice more sympathetic. She peels away the torn fabric of Johanna’s jumpsuit to get a better look at the cut. “It’s long, but shallow. It should stop bleeding soon. We’ll try to keep it clean.”

“Whatever,” Johanna says, annoyed at how pleased the concern evident in Katniss’s voice makes her. “Let’s just get what we need and get off the bloody island.”

“So besides Brutus and Enobaria, who’s left?” Katniss asks once they’ve regrouped on the beach.

“Maybe Chaff? Just those three,” Peeta says.

“They know they’re outnumbered. I doubt they’ll attack again. We’re safe here on the beach,” Finnick says.

“So what do we do, we hunt them down?” Johanna asks, unsure of what the next step is. Are they only supposed to escape the arena once every victor besides them is dead?

A shrill scream from the jungle leaves Johanna’s question unanswered. At first, Johanna assumes it’s Enobaria- who else could it be? Then she sees the color drain from Katniss’s face and her eyes fill with terror. “Prim!” Katniss shrieks. Before Johanna can stop her, Katniss tears off into the jungle. Johanna grabs her axe and leaps to her feet to run after her, but Finnick grabs her shoulder.

“You look after Peeta and Beetee,” he says. Johanna ties to protest, but he ignores her and sprints after Katniss.

There’s no way Johanna’s going to stand there. Not when she can hear Katniss screaming in the distance. “Don’t die while I’m gone,” she tells Peeta and Beetee, then turns and runs. But as she reaches the jungle, she slams into something hard. She falls backwards, her head exploding in pain. Blearily, she lifts her head up, trying to see what she’s run into, but there’s nothing. It must be another force field. She’s lucky she didn’t get electrocuted again.

Peeta runs up to her, helping to her feet. “We can’t go after her,” she tells him. “There’s some kind of force field. It’ll probably be there until the hour’s up.” She paces in front of the jungle. “Fuck!” she screams. She swings her axe at the force field. It bounces off without leaving a mark. But the violent action makes her feel slightly better, less useless, so she pounds at the force field until Peeta forcefully pulls her away. Her chest heaving and her arms sore, she screams Katniss’s name one last time, straining to hear a response. But the jungle has become silent.

“It’s jabberjays,” Beetee realizes. He points to a tree behind the force field, where a small black bird is perched on one of the branches.

“Those fuckers,” Johanna spits out. What, death isn’t satisfying enough for the Capitol citizens, they have to see the victors being mindfucked too, tortured by the screams of their loved ones? And if they’re using Prim against Katniss, then there’s no doubt that they’re using Annie against Finnick. Johanna gives the force field one final kick before resigning herself to waiting until the hour’s over.

Maybe twenty minutes later, Finnick and Katniss come barreling towards the beach. They’re both so distraught that they don’t notice Johanna’s and Peeta’s warnings about the force field and run straight into it. Katniss sinks to the ground, pounding on the force field, her eyes wide with fear. Her mouth is moving, but her voice is muffled.

“Katniss, it’s not your sister,” she says, even though she knows that talking to her is futile. She presses her hand on the invisible wall in an attempt at comfort. “I’m here, okay? Hey, brainless, it’s fucking jabberjays, it’s not real, it’s one of the Capitol’s mind games.” Katniss presses her own hand against Johanna’s. “I’m here,” Johanna repeats. “I’m not leaving you, I’m right here.” The next half hour is one Johanna knows she’ll be reliving later in nightmares. Katniss curls into a ball, covers her ears with her hands, squeezes her eyes shut, and screams wordlessly. And Johanna can do nothing but watch. The moment the hour’s up, Johanna runs to her.

“It’s over,” she says, kneeling down next to Katniss. Katniss startles, clutches at the fabric of Johanna’s wetsuit, looks around frantically.

“Prim-”

“She’s okay, it’s not her,” Johanna says. She pulls Katniss to her in an effort to calm her down. Katniss trembles in her arms, buries her head against Johanna’s shoulder. “It’s jabberjays, Prim’s okay,” Johanna says, wrapping her arms around Katniss.

“Let me see her,” Peeta says. Johanna is about to tell him to shove off when she remembers that they’re on television. How weird this must seem to the people of Panem- Johanna comforting Katniss as her lover and father of her unborn child stands by passively. Johanna reluctantly lets go of Katniss and backs away several paces, unwilling to stray too far.

Peeta takes over reassuring Katniss that her sister is safe. Katniss shakes her head, unconvinced.

“Your fiancé’s right,” Johanna says. “The whole country loves your sister. They tortured her, did anything to her- forget the districts, there would be riots in the damn Capitol.”

Katniss looks up at her, and for the first time there’s defeat in her eyes. The rebellious spirit that drew Johanna to Katniss in the first place has been broken down by the Gamemakers’ latest stunt. And that makes Johanna fucking furious.

“Hey, how does that sound, Snow?” she shouts at the sky. “What if we set your backyard on fire? You know, you can’t put everybody in here!”

She knows that no one in the Capitol or Districts has heard her, that the Gamemakers would never let her words be broadcast. But she didn’t say that to be heard. She said that to prove that she still could, that Snow made a huge mistake when he killed off everyone he loved and he’s going to fucking pay for it. And if Snow thinks he can silence Katniss by threatening her family, well, Johanna’s just going to have to be twice as loud.

“What?” Johanna asks, when she realizes that everyone is staring at her in shock. “They can’t hurt me. There’s no one left that I love.

“I’ll get you some water,” she tells Katniss, because she needs to get away, to have a moment to fucking think. As she walks to the jungle, her thoughts start to settle, sort themselves out, and her anger shifts from Snow to Katniss. Because there’s a new emotion making itself known. Something that hasn’t been there for a while. Something that leaves her vulnerable, stupid, weak.

Something that makes her last statement a lie.

Fuck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who's left kudos and the doubly awesome people who've left comments! It might take longer for the next chapter to be posted, but if the updates are slow in coming just know it's because I'm busy, not because I'm abandoning/losing interest in the fic.


	6. Katniss

No one left? No one? Johanna’s words echo in my head. There’s no one left that I love. I can’t really believe it. There’s Finnick, first off. And I know she has a family; I have a vague memory of her brother being interviewed during her Games. That’s two people right there. And what about-

“Katniss,” Peeta repeats louder.

“Yeah?” I say, shaking myself from my daze. My voice comes out rough, my throat raw and hoarse from screaming. I clear my throat, thankful that Johanna is bringing me water. “What is it, Peeta?”

“Is Finnick okay?” he asks, gesturing towards the lake. Finnick’s been sitting in the tide of the lake since we came out of the jungle, letting the waves lap over him as he stares vacantly out to the horizon. He hasn’t said a word to anyone.

“I don’t think so,” I say uselessly. “The jabberjays went after him, too. They used Annie Cresta’s screams.”

“Annie? The mad girl?”

“Johanna said they’re together.” Johanna, who’s been gone for ten minutes. “Where is she? She should be back by now,” I say.

Peeta shrugs. “I’m sure she’s fine. She took her axe with her.” But Johanna’s axe couldn’t protect her against those birds. What if there’s one left, one the Gamemakers forgot to recall? Although Johanna claims there’s no one whose screams would haunt her, I still shiver with fear at the thought.

“I’m going to go make sure she’s okay,” I say too casually, doing a poor job of hiding the fear that has welled up in my throat. Before Peeta can object, I jog off into the jungle.

Once in the jungle, my trained ears immediately pick up an unfamiliar sound. A repetitive thudding noise. Some type of mutt? But this area should be clear; the hour is over. Quietly, I track the noise to its source. Once I find it, I stop short, unsure of what I’m seeing.

Johanna isn’t getting water. Instead she’s slamming her axe into a tree. I watch her silently for several moments, confused. There’s no need for firewood. And anyway, she’s not trying to chop the tree down. Her strikes aren’t focused, but hectic. Angry.

“Johanna?” Startled, she swings around to face me, her axe poised to strike. “It’s me,” I say quickly, backing away.

“Oh,” she says sheepishly, dropping her weapon. “I thought you were a Career.”

“I could have been. Do you know how much noise you’re making?” I ask, my confusion giving away to annoyance. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing.” She changes the subject by picking up an arrow from the ground. “Here, I found this in one of the birds.”

“Thanks,” I say, taking it, wiping off the blood, and adding it to my sheath. “But you didn’t answer my question.”

Johanna turns away from me and faces the tree. She runs a hand down the fractured bark, her fingers tracing the crevices she’s created with her axe.

“I got angry,” is all she says as an explanation. Silently she hammers the spile into the tree and fills up an empty shell with water. She gives it to me, and I take it with a nod of thanks. The cool water helps ease my sore throat and I gulp it down greedily.

“You know what I said, about having no one I love?” Johanna asks out of nowhere. Taken aback, I pause for a moment before nodding. “That wasn’t always true,” Johanna says. She looks up at the sky. “You better change the cameras. You don’t want them to hear this,” she says, addressing the Gamemakers. Not angry this time. Resigned.

She turns back to me. The broken look in her eyes is all too familiar. It’s something I’ve seen too often in the eyes of Haymitch and my mother. It’s what I saw in the eyes of the families of every tribute during the Victory Tour. My first instinct is to shut my ears, to run away. I’m not going to like what I’m about to hear.

“I used to have a family. It was me, my parents, and my brother Simon. Simon and I were really close. We were around two years apart, but everyone thought we were twins. He was the older one, but I took the role of the boss.” I smile a little at that. “My parents were constantly working, so it was pretty much us raising each other. We built this tree house out deep in the forest and we spent hours there, playing cards or talking about girls. It was honestly the shittiest little tree house you’ve ever seen, but I loved that place. It helped us get away, y’know, from all the shit in the world.

“His last day in the reaping, when they didn’t call his name, was one of the best days of my life. And when they called my name the next year. . . his face. . .” She doesn’t need to finish her sentence. It’s the same face I made when Prim was reaped. Except Simon couldn’t volunteer in Johanna’s place.

“He wasn’t the first one they killed. I fell in love with this really fucking great girl named Maris around half a year after the Games. She was the only person besides my family I could really trust. Everyone else was freaked out because of what I did in the Games, but Maris understood.” She thinks about that, then shakes her head. “No, she didn’t. You can’t understand unless you’ve been in the arena. Unless you’re a victor, like us. But Maris listened. She was a really good listener.

“Then, maybe a month after my Victory Tour, Snow comes to my house. Said we were going to have a little talk about my Talent. Instead, he asked me to. . . he told me to go sell myself. He wanted me to be a prostitute for all those dipshits in the Capitol. I said no, because I had Maris, so he fucking killed her.” She takes a deep breath, and for a moment I’m not sure if she’ll continue, or if I want her to continue, but she does.

“They got her at work. At the sawmilll. I kept telling her to quit but she didn’t want to, she had friends there.” She runs a hand through her hair. “I was so stupid. I should have known she wasn’t safe. I should have told her how much danger she could be in. And because I’m such a fucking idiot her arm got torn off by one of the machines. The second I heard there’d been an accident, I knew. That Snow was making me pay for disobeying him.”

She blinks hard. “They couldn’t even give me a day to grieve over Maris before they moved on to their next target. I was walking home from the sawmill to cry on my mom’s shoulder when I saw the smoke. I ran the rest of the way home, but I wasn’t fucking fast enough.” Her voice catches again, and she pauses, but her eyes remain dry. “Simon- he was the only one still alive. He’d jumped from his window to escape the flames. He was lying there on the ground, half his face charred, one of his ribs fucking poking out form his body. I couldn’t do anything for him.”

I couldn’t do anything for him. I couldn’t save her. Now it seems Johanna and I have another bond; helplessly watching those we love die. Rue and Simon, both murdered by the Capitol. No wonder Johanna understands me better in a week than most have in years.

Johanna’s face hardens and her brow furrows in anger as she continues. “The thing that pisses me off is that they didn’t even bother to make it look like an accident,” Johanna says. “The doors were boarded up, fuck, they even left cans of gasoline lying around the house. But of course the news blamed it on a fucking forest fire. Natural disaster. What a fucking joke.

“So a week after, in my new house, Snow makes another visit. Makes the same offer. And of course I tell him to fuck off. What else could they do to hurt me, I thought. Who else could they kill? A lot of people, it turns out. Old childhood friends. Neighbors. The first girl I kissed. All burned down in their houses.”

I suddenly remember a comment Caesar made to one of the tributes from District 7 during the interviews a couple years back- “Oh, it’s been a tough year for your district, hasn’t it? I can assure you that the news of the forest fires have tugged at the heartstrings of the Capitol.”

I think I might throw up. I can already taste the bitter acid at the bottom of my throat. I lean against a tree for support, my weakened knees unable to hold me up.

“Snow didn’t even ask me to become a prostitute again after that,” Johanna says. “I would have said yes if he did. But I guess he just wanted to show me what happens when you refuse.

For the first time since she started speaking, Johanna looks at me straight in the eyes. “You don’t realize how many people you care about until they’re all dead,” she says. “Love is weird that way.”

Johanna observes me silently as I process her story, her gaze not leaving my own. Is she waiting for my reaction? Does she want me to get angry, to cry? All I can do is stare back at her, stunned.

“You don’t have to say anything,” Johanna says, finally breaking eye contact. “I just wanted you to understand. To realize how lucky you are.”

Lucky? Since the reaping I’ve considered myself anything but lucky. Johanna’s right, though. Without even realizing it I played all my cards right during my Games. I’ve kept Prim safe by making the Capitol fall in love with her. By selling the Capitol on the narrative of Peeta and I as lovers, I’ve made it impossible for Snow to auction either of us off to the highest bidder. It would ruin the illusion.

“Johanna? Katniss?” Finnick calls for us from the beach. Finnick. If Johanna was propositioned, that exact same “offer” must have been made to the young, handsome Finnick as well. Annie’s survival is proof that Finnick gave in. Which means those “lovers” who dote on Finnick in the Capitol aren’t lovers but rapists.

“Johanna, I had no idea-”

“No one does,” she says gently. “Let’s go. They’ll be worried.” It’s not until she offers a hand to me that I realize I’m still leaning against the tree for support. I grab her hand and she pulls me up. I feel like we’re back on the Cornucopia again, the ground spinning beneath me, with only Johanna’s hand as an anchor. When she lets go, I find myself yearning to reach out and grab it again.

I don’t, though, and we walk back to the beach in silence.

Beetee excitedly waves us over when we arrive. “I have a plan,” he states once we’ve all gathered around him, and he explains his idea. He thinks we can use the lightning from the tree and the wire he grabbed from the Cornucopia to electrocute the remaining Careers on the beach.

“How do we know the wire’s not going to burn up?” Johanna asks. Her face and tone are neutral, betraying no sign of our conversation.

“Because I invented it. I assure you, it won’t burn up,” Beetee says.

Johanna and Finnick exchange a look, and Johanna nods slightly. I try to interpret what that means, but Johanna’s eyes shift to mine and I drop my gaze, embarrassed at having been caught staring.

“Well, it’s better than hunting them down,” Johanna says.

Maybe. I know that this plan is accomplishing nothing but putting off the inevitable- our alliance falling apart. But I agree to it, because if anything it bides us some time. And because I trust Johanna.

“Alright, I say we try it,” Peeta says. With that, we have a plan. A way to spend our last hours alive.

“So what can we do to help?” Finnick asks.

“Keep me alive for the next six hours,” Beetee says. “We’ll head out at dark.”

Beetee’s words mark the end of our meeting. Good- I need some time away from the others to rethink my own strategy. The one that ends up with Peeta being crowned victor.

“Peeta, can we talk?” I ask him. “In private?”

“Of course,” he says.

I grab his hand and lead him away from the others. We sit down at the edge of the beach. I glance over to the others to make sure we aren’t within their hearing range. Johanna’s absentmindedly digging her axe into the ground. We make eye contact for a brief second before I break it. I’m unable to look at her for too long.

“I think we need to go,” I tell Peeta, my voice uneven and strained.

“This plan’s going to work,” he reassures me.

“I think so too. Once the Careers are dead, we both know what happens next. I can’t be the one that shoots first,” I say.

Two days ago, I was prepared to kill anyone to save Peeta. At the Cornucopia I was only seconds away from firing an arrow into Johanna’s heart. If she hadn’t shown me the gold bracelet in time, she’d be dead. If we stick around too long, we might be in the same position again. Except this time, I’ll have to release my arrow.

“What if they don’t either? What if all of us refuse to shoot first?” Peeta points out, always the optimist.

“We might still end up dead,” I say.

“Maybe not, I mean it worked for us last time.”

“They’re not gonna make that same mistake again,” I say. “You know and I know there’s only one person walking out of here. And it’s gonna be one of us,” I say.

Or Johanna.

What? No! I can’t think like that! I made a promise to keep Peeta alive at all costs. A promise to Haymitch, a promise to myself. How dare I, even for a second, consider saving someone I’ve met not but a week ago over him? What is wrong with me?

“Love is weird,” Johanna said. She’s right. Sometimes you don’t know how much you care for someone until they’re gone. And sometimes, even you know you should love somebody, you can’t. I could write down a million reasons why I should love Peeta, but my heart never follows my brain. Even Gale, who I’ve known for years, has never stirred that emotion within me. But when I thought Johanna was dead-

“. . . and if we hear a cannon, we go,” Peeta finishes. I force my attention back to him. “Katniss, I don’t know what kind of deals you made with Haymitch, but he made me promises as well.” He takes off the golden amulet he’s been wearing, the one Effie gave him that matches my mockingjay pin and Johanna’s bracelet. “If you die, and I live, I’d have nothing. Nobody else that I care about. It’s different for you.” He opens the locket and hands it to me. Photos of my mother, Prim, and Gale stare back at me. “Your family needs you,” Peeta continues. “You have to live. For them.”

He’s right. They need me to guarantee their safety, especially now that I know the full extent of Snow’s cruelty. But I’m not the only one with family. “What about you?” I ask, thinking of his parents, his brothers.

“No one needs me,” Peeta says.

“I do,” I say. “I need you.” Because Peeta’s my best friend. Together we’ve fended off Careers, mutts, and nightmares. We wouldn’t have survived the Games without one another. How could he say that? Act like there’s nobody who cares for him? Just because I don’t return his romantic feelings doesn’t mean he’s not important to me, even if it’s not in the way he wants. But I can’t say any of this out loud. Haymitch’s voice in my head, ordering me to give the Capitol what they want to see. Which means two lovers, not two friends. So I pull Peeta towards me and kiss him.

I’ve kissed Peeta so many times now that I’m simply going through the motions. My mind is elsewhere, wondering how the hell I’m supposed to finish these Games. Maybe it would be best if Beetee’s trap malfunctions and kills us all. Even if I manage to save Peeta, what am I saving him for? A life to be tortured by Snow?

“Alright, lovebirds!” Johanna interrupts. I jerk away from Peeta quickly, embarrassed that Johanna had to watch us kiss. “It’s time to head out,” she says.

“Right,” Peeta says. His voice is hurt, and I feel a pang of guilt. Do I make it so obvious that I kiss him out of obligation?

“Peeta. . .” There’s nothing I can think of to say.

“No. I understand,” he says. I understand. The Capitol audience can interpret that any way they wish. Only I know its true meaning: I understand that you’ll never love me like I love you.

“Let’s go,” Peeta says. A heavy sense of dread settling in my stomach, I follow Peeta as he sets off towards the tree.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took so long to post a relatively short chapter! Blame tech week. And honestly I would have edited a little more but I'm leaving for a trip tomorrow and I didn't want to make you want for five more days for an update. Thanks again to everyone who left kudos or comments!


	7. Johanna

Tick. Tick. Tick. Despite the arena’s clocklike design, there is no audible ticking noise, but there might as well be. Johanna feels every second that drags by, counting down to the moment of their escape. Or until their death. The latter seems more likely, if not inevitable. She can’t help but hope, though.

What would it be like? If they all escaped to District 13 together, with no fuck ups in the plan?

What could that mean for her?

Johanna never used to think about the future. Nothing there but the hollow pain of loneliness, with occasional Capitol mindfuckery.

Would it have to be that way now?

She shakes her head, scoffing at herself. Stupid, really, to think like that. Yet - if she’s going to die not ten minutes from now, maybe she deserves all the happy thoughts she can get.

But where are these thoughts coming from? What’s with this bullshit idea she’s gotten into her head about her feelings for Katniss? She doesn’t love Katniss. She likes Katniss. She admires Katniss. And, yeah, Katniss is one of the most attractive women she’s seen in a while. But she sure as fuck isn’t falling in love again. It’s just the heightened emotions of the Game causing her to mistake her lust for something deeper than it is.

Still, and again, this is only because she’s going to face her death soon, she allows herself to think about them. As a them.

Johanna is broken out of her reverie by none other than the subject of her daydreams. “Are you okay?” Katniss asks softly.

“What? Yeah. Why wouldn’t I be?” Johanna asks.

“You seem quiet.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I was supposed to be making small talk about the weather,” Johanna retorts. “Does it look like rain to you?”

Katniss lets out a small laugh but shakes her head. “No, I meant-”

The sound of the Capitol’s anthem blaring interrupts them and brings the group to a pause. It’s time for the recap of the fallen tributes. There’s Glimmer, the image of picturesque beauty. Johanna cringes when her face flashes in the sky - she didn’t look so beautiful with an axe embedded in her chest. And poor Mags, who died because of her, a death she feels as responsible for as Glimmer’s. And Blight, who Johanna’s going to miss more than she will ever let on. The group observes the tribute in silence before moving on, leaving Johanna to wonder what it was Katniss meant.

It’s another minute before they make it to the tree. It’s taller than any tree in District 7 - the Capitol’s stringent production demands force trees to be cut down for lumber before they reach their full potential. It towers above Johanna menacingly, its artificiality unnerving her.

Beetee hands the coil to Johanna and Katniss. Johanna’s breath catches in her throat when she takes it from him. Her plan has always been to use the coil to knock out Katniss before removing her tracker. But it’s heavier than she’d thought it’d be. In five minutes, it’ll be colliding with Katniss’s temple. What if she misjudges her own strength and hits Katniss too hard? It’s almost comically easy to kill Katniss instead of knocking her out. Even easier to leave her with brain damage.

Maybe she doesn’t have to harm Katniss at all. She could try to explain the plan on their way to the beach. No - then the Capitol would hear, and everything would be ruined. She’s got to do remove the tracker by force as quickly as possible.

Johanna shivers. Best not to think about it until she absolutely must.

Distracted by the coil, it takes her a moment to notice the argument that’s broken out.

“Finnick can protect you just fine on his own,” Peeta whines to Beetee.

“Yeah, why can’t Finnick and Johanna stay with you and Peeta and I’ll take the coil?” Katniss asks.

Johanna ignores the sting of Katniss’s rejection. “It’s his plan, we all agreed to it,” she says, sounding more hurt than she’d like.

“Is there a problem here?” Finnick asks.

“Excellent question,” Beetee says.

Katniss glances over at Johanna. And with what might just be a trick of the light, her furrowed brow seems to relax.

“No,” Katniss says. “There’s no problem.”

Before leaving, Katniss hugs Peeta, who wraps his arms around her tightly. Johanna looks away. “Alright, let’s go,” she says loudly before she’s forced to witness another make-out session.

She and Katniss make their way silently across the arena. Katniss insists on taking the coil from Johanna, and Johanna can’t think of a reasonable explanation for why she must have it, so she lets her. In return, Katniss hands Johanna her bow for safekeeping. Her bow. Her only weapon. Katniss takes it back after only a few minutes, but that gesture of trust lingers in Johanna’s mind.

Thunder rumbles over them. “Come on, I want to put as much distance between me and this beach as possible,” Johanna says. “Frying is not how I intend to go.”

Katniss stops abruptly. “There’s something-“

The wire suddenly goes slack. Fuck! The Careers aren’t at the beach like she’d thought- they’ve followed them into the jungle. Johanna is officially out of time.

Johanna has faced a lot of horrible things in the Games. But nothing as horrible as this.

Katniss drops the coil to the ground to draw out an arrow, and Johanna lunges for it. She swings the coil at Katniss’s temple, her stomach churning at the crunching sound. Katniss drops to the ground instantly, landing with a heavy thud. Johanna doesn’t have enough time to check if she’s okay before climbing on top of her, pinning her arms down with her knees. Taking a deep breath, she presses her hand against Katniss’s forearm. When her fingers hit the raised bump, she digs her axe into the flesh without hesitation, fishing out that fucking shitty device. Katniss moans, and Johanna looks at her - big mistake. Katniss’s eyes are wide with betrayal, pair and fear. But there’s no time to explain. Johanna smears the blood from Katniss’s arms across her throat. Katniss lets out a soft whimper.

“Shh, shh, shh,” Johanna says, running her thumb clumsily against Katniss’s lips in what she hopes is a comforting gesture. She looks around for the Careers. Fuck! Brutus and Enobaria are only several yards away. “Stay down!” Johanna hisses to Katniss. Incapacitated, Katniss practically has a glowing target on her back. Johanna can’t fight off two Careers on her own. She has only one option- distraction. Standing up, Johanna chucks her axe in the direction of Enobaria and Brutus. Her axe just misses Enobaria, who turns on her in an instant, flashing her razor sharp teeth. Completely unarmed, Johanna runs away from Katniss, hoping she has enough sense to play dead long enough for Johanna to draw the Careers away.

Johanna races into the jungle, the Careers hot on her trail. Brutus is slow, though, the one downside of his enormous size, and after several minutes of sprinting through the trees Johanna’s confident she’s lost them. She slows down for a second. Damn, that could hardly have gotten worse. Her only consolation is that Katniss didn’t lose consciousness, so Johanna couldn’t have hit her too hard, right? But that look of fear that met her gaze. . .

Is there anything worse?

She can’t dwell on it any longer. What’s her move now? Any minute now, Beetee will blow the force field open. Can she run back to the lightning tree and join them before the lightning hits? She has nothing sharp she can use to cut out her tracker. If she runs towards the tree with her tracker embedded in her skin, she’ll put everyone in danger. Maybe she can find a rock sharp enough to gouge it out-

Someone slams into her, knocking her to the ground. She lands awkwardly, her elbow jabbing into her gut, knocking the breath out of her. Is Enobaria about to bite her throat out, or is Brutus going to stomp her head in? Doesn’t matter, she’s a goner either way. Well, she’s not one to go without a fight. She rolls onto her back, flings her hand out, takes hold of a rock, and-

“Johanna?”

“Peeta?” Because who is it but the fucking baker! Peeta stands in front of her, panting heavily, a machete held protectively against his chest.

“Where’s Katniss?” he asks, grabbing her arm and yanking her to her feet.

No, no, no. This is not good. Why is Peeta in the jungle? Why is he not by the tree for pickup like he’s supposed to be? Something’s gone wrong. “What the fuck are you doing here?” she asks, shaking his grip from her arm.

Before Peeta can answer, the Careers finally catch up. Brutus grabs Johanna from behind and lifts her up into the air. Johanna screams and kicks backwards, hitting him in the groin. He drops her and she collapses on the ground. She scrambles away desperately on her hands and knees, expecting Brutus’s foot to crush her head any instant. But the blow she expects never comes. She turns around to look at Brutus. He stares at his chest, confused, at the machete buried in him. He pulls it out, then collapses on the ground, dead. Enobaria looks at Peeta and Johanna for a second, decides she’s outnumbered, and sprints away.

Before she can thank Peeta for saving her life, he starts yelling at her. “What’s going on? Where’s Katniss?” Peeta demands. There’s no time to explain. She grabs the machete from Brutus’s hand. “Finnick tried to attack me!” Peeta says. “Have you two been planning this the whole time? You murderers!”

“Finnick tried to save you!” she says, exasperated, but the thunder covers up her words. There’s no time to explain. She lunges at Peeta, ready to overpower him to get that damn tracker out, when the lightning hits the tree. And the arena explodes.

The sheer force of the blast throws Johanna several feet into the air. She lands hard on the ground, slides across the mud and slams her head against a nearby tree. The world swerves in and out of focus for several seconds as the arena collapses all around her. Johanna squeezes her eyes shut, trying to refocus. It’s hard- her ears are ringing and her head feels like it’s about to split open. She feels blood dripping from her forehead, but when she reaches up to wipe it away, her side erupts into pain. She must’ve bruised a rib when she fell. Fuck.

It takes several moments to catch her breath. When she finally opens her eyes, Peeta’s gone. That idiot. That fucking shitbrain. With the tracker in his arm, it’s only a matter of time before the Capitol captures him.

The tracker. . . she still hasn’t removed hers. She’s screwed if she can’t get it out. With a grunt of pain, Johanna gets to her feet and looks around desperately for Peeta’s machete. There’s time left. She can make it to the tree for pickup. A glint of metal on the ground catches her eye. Johanna hobbles over to it, triumphantly grabbing the handle of the machete. Peeta must have dropped it before taking off. He’s even stupider than Johanna gives him credit for.

Without pausing to prepare herself, Johanna digs the blade into her skin. Tears fill her eyes and she almost passes out again as she pries the tracker out with the blade. She flings it as far away as possible, then stumbles in the opposite direction.

Each step is agony, causing sharp pain to course through her arm, her sides, her head. But she can do this. She can’t be more than five, maybe ten minutes away from the lightning tree. It can’t be too late.

Something in her peripheral vision catches her eye. She stops short, looks up, and catches the sight of Plutarch’s hovercraft flying away.

Her stomach sinks with dread. She was too late. Her future, which briefly had seemed full of some type of promise, is rewritten again before her eyes. There’s no chance for escape now; the Capitol will have her in no time. She’ll be taken into a small room and tortured. Burning, water-boarding, mutilation, any kind. All kinds. For how long? Who knows- they won’t let her off easy. They’ll keep her alive as long as possible. The torture could last for years. Unless. . .

She looks down at the machete, then at her still-bleeding wrist. There is one final escape. It’s tempting. . .

No. Johanna shakes her head violently, disgusted with herself. That would be the ultimate defeat, the ultimate victory for the Capitol. The deaths of her loved ones become meaningless the instant Johanna stops fighting. With her last ounce of strength, she throws the machete as far away as possible before she can reconsider.

The pieces of the arena fall around her, crashing into the ground, bursting into flames. Slowly, the sky is exposed panel by panel. Patches of stars unveil themselves, filling the sky. It’s peaceful, in a way.

As she waits for her inevitable fate, a smile slowly spreads across her face. Her own future is bleak. But the future of Panem is brighter than ever before. The Mockingjay has once again defied the Capitol on live TV. The events of tonight will ripple through the entire nation. The tension that has been covered up since the last Hunger Games will explode. Into riots, into revolution. And the revolution will spread, as fast as wildfire, across Panem, until the foundation upon which the Capitol was built collapses, leaving a new civilization to rise from the rubble.

That’s not why she’s smiling, though. She’s not in it for the revolution anymore.

She’s in it for Katniss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yo, it's me again. Sorry for abandoning this story for so long! Basically bc of personal issues I had to delete my tumblr (my brother found it oops), and the process of being separated from the Joniss fandom as well as the fact that college turns out to be really fucking hard meant I couldn't find time or motivation to finish the story. And I can't promise regular updates from now on, simply because I have so much less free time. However! That one second of Johanna in Mockingjay completely revived my love for the character and this ship, and I will try my best to finish this story, even if it might take a while. I will try to get in another update before the end of Winter Break. My goal is to finish the story before the next movie- I have 6 more chapters planned, so that seems doable?  
> Also! Sorry this chapter is shorter than the rest. The Mockingjay chapters coming up should be longer AND also have more Joniss moments. Get excited.  
> Anyway, hope people are still interested, even with the long hiatus! If you leave kudos or a comment I will adore you forever.


	8. Katniss and Johanna

My mind is thick, pulsing with white noise and static. I struggle to focus on something, anything. I can’t open my eyes or move any part of my body. I am only dully aware of pain washing over me, but I can’t tell where it’s coming from. I’m not even in my body any more. I’m outside of it, suspended in a grey fog.

Then, out of the nothing that possesses my brain, a voice comes to me, clear and strong, urgent.

_Stay down! ___

My consciousness slams back down into my body. In an instant, I remember everything. The Games, the explosion, being dragged up into the hovercraft. A Capitol hovercraft. But all that is background noise to the strongest memory that emerges.

Johanna. . . Johanna attacked me. . . She turned on me. . .

_Stay down!_

But Johanna’s my friend . . . I thought we were- she wouldn’t. . .

_He was stabbed when he grabbed it._

Beetee. . . He was trying to destroy the force field. . . When I found him, his tracker was also cut out of his wrist. . .

_Love is weird_

But before passing out I saw Plutarch. . . Which means I must be in the Capitol’s control. . .

_There’s no one left_

I can’t get Johanna’s voice out of my head.

_I just wanted you to understand_

Why can’t I get her voice out of her head? She’s trying to tell me something. . .

_There’s no one left that I love_

Johanna would never have attacked me. . . Johanna would never have intentionally wanted to hurt me… but she did. . .

Which means this is part of a plan. It has to be. And this hovercraft I’m on, it’s not taking me to the Capitol, but far away. To safety?

I open my eyes.

Multiple IV drips are in my arm. A breathing mask is over my face - I yank it off immediately. I blink to sharpen my vision and look around me. Beetee’s lying on the ground, also unconscious. Or dead? I stay stock still until I see his chest rise and fall, and breathe a sigh of relief. I detach the IV drips, catching a glimpse of my bandaged arm while I do so. I wonder if Johanna wrapped the bandage herself - the thought brings me a great deal of comfort.

I set off to explore the hovercraft, to find Johanna. For a moment, I consider grabbing a syringe for protection. Just in case I’m wrong.

But I know I’m not. Not about her.

I leave the syringe behind.

I wander the hallways quietly, my still-buzzing ears making it difficult to hear. But something catches my attention. There’s a loud, angry conversation behind a door. I stay still for a moment, trying to make out the voices. One is Plutarch. The other is Finnick.

Finnick. Johanna’s best friend. If he’s in there, she’ll be right along with him.

But when I open the door, the relieved smile that has formed on my face drops when I see only Haymitch, Finnick, and Plutarch.

“Morning, sweetheart,” Haymitch says.

“What’s going on? Where’s Johanna?” I ask. “Where’s Peeta?”

Plutarch launches into a clearly rehearsed speech. He says something about me, and the revolution, and the Mockingjay, but I’m unable to fully concentrate on his words until he mentions District 13.

“Thirteen?” I ask.

“Thirteen, yes,” he confirms.

There’s a hundred questions that need to be answered. But there’s only one I really care about right now. “Where are Johanna and Peeta?” I insist.

Finnick and Plutarch turn away from me, and I know the news before Haymitch opens his mouth.

“Peeta still has his tracker in his arm. Johanna cut yours out.”

“Where are they?” My voice is shaking.

Haymitch pauses. “In the Capitol. They got both of them.”

I lose it.

“You son of a bitch!” I swing wildly at Haymitch, but I’m still weak from the blood loss, and my fist lands flimsily on his chest. Now I regret not bringing the syringe with me. I get in a few more punches before someone - it must be Plutarch - injects me with from behind. I immediately lose control of my body. I sag to the floor, darkness gathering at the corners of my eyes, my mind plummeting towards unconsciousness.

Only my voice seems to still work. And before I’m claimed once again by the static, I hear myself sob, “Johanna, Johanna!”

-

Johanna’s torture begins simplely - tied helplessly to a chair, facing only a man and his fists. The Capitol torturer starts with hard and quick punches to the stomach, not stopping until a particularly hard blow causes her to retch. That seems to satisfy him, and he works his way up to her face, getting in several good punches causing her nose to gush blood and one of her eyes to close shut. Then he asks his first question.

“Where is Katniss Everdeen?”

She has to laugh. She’s been through the fucking Games - twice - and this Capitol guy thinks roughing her up a little is going to make her give up Katniss’s location? So she laughs right in his face, spitting out a tooth onto the floor as she does so.

The man grabs her by her hair and slams her head into his knee as a response.

She gives her first cry of pain as her nose connects with his leg and cracks loudly. She opens her mouth to breathe, but blood runs straight into her mouth and she chokes on it. She tries to spit the blood onto her torturer’s face, but she can only sputter weakly.

“I’m sorry this isn’t very impressive yet, is it,” the torturer says. He shakes his head. “I know I’d be disappointed if I were you. I mean, this is the Capitol we’re talking about. I’m sure you had higher expectations for your stay in our torture chamber. Well, don’t worry. This is just the first day out of many.”

“I know,” Johanna says. “I’m planning on dying here. I’m never going to tell you jack shit.”

This time it’s his turn to laugh. “Oh, sweetie. You’ve got it wrong. See, if you tell us what we need to hear, then we’ll let you die. I’m afraid our uncooperative visitors are still quite alive. Well, if you’d call it that.”

For the first time since the torture began, Johanna feels real fear. She’s never had to face not dying before. At least with the Games you were guaranteed that no matter what, you wouldn’t suffer forever.

“I’ll be back,” he promises, with a wink and a smile. “And this time, we’ll make it more fun for both of us.”

-

When I can’t sleep, my hand drifts to the scar that marks my wrist. It was a deep cut, and the skin around my dark scar is wrinkled. Effie thinks it’s hideous and wants it removed for the propos, but I fought against that suggestion tooth and nail. I wear the scar as a badge of pride. I want to show to the world how indebted I am to Johanna for saving my life at her own expense. I want to remind all of District 13 - and myself - that every second that passes is a second Johanna is being tortured. Because of me.

I’m not just worried about Johanna, of course. Peeta, too, is constantly on my mind. I’m worried sick about my best friend, knowing that I was supposed to protect him and I let him down. But he’s not a physical presence like Johanna is, who makes herself known in my skin, in the occasional throbbing of my left temple.

I try not to think about the specifics of her torture, but when everything is still in the night it’s impossible not to. Have they turned her into an Avox? If anything, that would be a preferable fate for Johanna - at least she’d be alive. But it’s hard to imagine her without her trademark wit. No, they would never stop at cutting out her tongue. They’ll never let her go at all. She’s said too much shit about the Capitol. She’s not making it out of there alive.

I let out an unexpected sob and cover up my mouth to try and quiet it.

“Hey. Can’t sleep?” Prim asks. I nod, somewhat pathetically, and crawl next to her in her bed. “Tell me what’s happening,” she whispers to me. “I’m good at keeping secrets. Even from Mom.”

“No one hates the Capitol more than me,” I whisper back. ‘And I want to help. But I keep thinking - what if we win this war? What happens to Johanna, and Peeta? They’re not safe in the Capitol, but if they come here. . .”

“I don’t think you realize how important you are to them. You can demand anything you want,” Prim says.

“I can do that?”

“Of course. You can guarantee all their safety.” She pauses for a brief moment. “I can’t wait until I get to meet Johanna in person. I like her.” Prim says. I turn to her, surprised.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. She looked out for you in the Games. I was really happy to see someone working so hard to protect you.” I smile faintly, my first smile in weeks. “I know you’re worried about her. I think she’s really strong, though. If anyone could survive being prisoner in the Capitol, it’d be her.”

“I should wake you up more often, little duck,” I say, feeling relived.

“You should get some sleep now.”

And I do. But thoughts of Johanna don’t end once I fall asleep. Her presence seeps into my dreams. Again, she isn’t the only visitor - Peeta is there, being beaten raw in front of my eyes. Enoboria, her sharp teeth pried out by pliers one by one. Annie, drowning in a glass case. But it is Johanna I see the most vividly. In my dream, I see her crumpled in a weak heap on the ground. I run to hug her, but as I reach out I realize I’m on fire. It’s too late - my arms have already enveloped her, and soon she is screaming, struggling to get away, but my arms are locked, I can’t let go, and I helplessly listen to her skin sizzle.

“The Girl on Fire.” I loath my nickname.

“The Mockingjay” sounds better every day.

-

Johanna’s left alone for several days after her first beating. It takes at least a full day for her nose to stop bleeding. Maybe longer - she has no way of telling the time. Her face swells up even more, and she’s temporarily blinded for a while. She hasn’t eaten anything since the fish in the arena, which she mostly threw up, but she doesn’t feel hungry at all. Dread fills up the empty spaces in her stomach.

It’s impossible to get comfortable enough to fall into a deep sleep, but she drifts in and out of consciousness. In those few seconds of sleep, she dreams that Katniss has come to rescue her. She sees Katniss standing in the door with her bow in her hands, ready to protect Johanna, to make those who tortured her suffer. Johanna wakes up from these dreams feeling hopeful. Those few seconds of hope are worse than the constant pain she’s in.

This time, when Johanna snaps out of unconsciousness, she sees a figure in the door and her heart soars. But it’s just the torturer.

“I’ve been looking through your file,” he says. He clucks his tongue. “What a sad life. You know, in these cases we always look to family and friends of our victim. See who we can bring in to cause the most pain. But it looks that’s impossible for you, doesn’t it? No one left gives a shit about poor Johanna Mason. So I’ve had to get a bit creative.”

He calls behind him. “Bring it in.”

Three Peacekeepers haul something into the chamber that looks almost like a tub. It’s metal, deep and long, and when the torturer presses a button it begins to fill with water.

“What,” Johanna says, “Do you think I’m scared of bubble baths?”

“No, I’m afraid it’s much worse than that. Your family burned alive now, didn’t they? Did you know that’s one of the worst possible ways to die? Very painful. You feel your flesh melt off your bones, you have to listen to it sizzle. You don’t die quickly that way.”

“You sick fuck-”

“But you wouldn’t understand what it’s like, would you? You’ve never been badly burned. I think that’s a shame. You should know what your family went through. It’s only fair that you truly understand the pain you brought them. So I did a little research.”  
He pulls something out from his belt that Johanna didn’t notice before. A long, black stick, like a baton. Then he presses a button and it sparks with electricity.

“No.” The word comes out as a whisper.

“Oh, yes,” says the torturer. “The only pain just as bad as being burned alive is being shocked within an inch of your life.” He grins, widely. “We got off to a boring start the other day. But I’m sure this will satisfy?”

-

They bombed the hospital. I shouldn’t be so shocked that the Capitol would kill one hundred unarmed citizens, but I am. I gasp, struggling to breathe in the hot air. My lungs are squeezed tight with horror and smoke.

“Katniss, can you tell everyone what you’re seeing right now?” Cressida asks me. I’d forgotten why I’m here in the first place - to get propaganda footage. And now hundreds of lives are destroyed. Because of me. No - not because of me. I can’t think like that anymore. It’s because of the Capitol. “What do you want to say?” Cressida asks, and she points towards Pollux’s camera.

“I want the rebels to know I’m alive,” I say, my voice coming out stronger than I was expecting. “I’m in District 8, where the Capitol just bombed a hospital. There will be no survivors. If you think for one second that the Capitol will ever treat us fairly, you are lying to yourself.”

This is how Johanna’s family died, I realize suddenly. Just like the hospital victims, they were all innocent. Just like them, they died in fear and pain. “If you think this is the first time the Capitol has killed innocent people in this exact same way, you’re wrong,” I tell the cameras.

I close my eyes for a brief second and imagine that Johanna is watching me right now. What would she say? “Make him pay for it.” The memory of her voice, and the fact that I might never hear it again, sets off a deep rage within me. “I have a message for President Snow,” I yell, louder and more confident than before. It’s not just for Snow, though. This message is for Johanna. This message is for her family. “You can torture us and bomb us and burn our districts to the ground, but do you see that?” I gesture wildly at the burning wreckage behind me. “Fire is catching. And if we burn, you burn with us!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> better late than never? 
> 
> not a lot of joniss in this chapter, it's mostly just to bridge the gap between the two books / movies. Joniss will be ramping up like crazy in the chapters to come. (they just might take a while to get published :/) I'm pretty confident there'll be four more chapters.
> 
> for those of you who are coming back to this story after almost a year of hiatus - I love you guys, and I'm sorry that I suck.


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